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Please help analyze marketing approach to user acquisition

by m1522632
8 replies
Hi there!

Here is the situation. I am involved into promotion of a directory for a certain type of medical providers (e.g. dentists). There is no monthly fee, later on we are planning to charge providers per each appointment made through out system.

What we did was we bought a marketing email list and sent approximately 30,000 emails to providers with an invitation to join our directory. The result was only 20 people signed up and 20% bounced.

Can anyone help me analyze what could be wrong with this marketing approach?

What else does it make sense to focus on to get providers sign up?

(I can’t reveal too many details for now but I can share more via PM)

Thank you
#acquisition #analyze #approach #marketing #user
  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    It sounds like either:

    1) Whatever message you sent out did not clearly convey the benefit of taking time to join your directory.

    Is there such a benefit? I.e. does your directory actually deliver new appointments to most of the businesses listed there?

    Does said directory have a significant number of listings in it, as social proof that others see this benefit and want to be listed there?

    2) Your mail didn't make it to the people you needed to reach, which your 20% bounce rate is highly suggestive of.

    How did you send the mail? Where did you get the list? Do you know the e-mails are good and recently acquired?

    Unsolicited commercial e-mailing is usually considered SPAM, and if you sent it off your own mail server, or the mail server of a shared web host, the messages probably didn't make it into inboxes in the first place.
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    • Profile picture of the author m1522632
      thank you for you comment, let me answer this.

      1) message I sent clearly convey the benefits they would get. I sent diffent messages with the same result. The directory is not very popular yet, but it looks very professional and have a bug number of members.

      2) emails were sent from my hosting's shared smtp server. I got a lot of responses with a request to click on some link to confirm that it's not spam, so I think most of them were delivered.


      Originally Posted by Dan Grossman View Post

      It sounds like either:
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  • Profile picture of the author DustonMcGroarty
    Honestly, dentists are being POUNDED with sales pitches all day long. Mobile sites, SEO, email management... you name it.

    I'd say there are two things at play here:
    1. The decision maker isn't checking the email
    2. Even if they were, it would most likely get deleted

    I have two suggestions... send them something in the mail that looks like nothing they've ever seen or call them on the phone.
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  • Profile picture of the author betterwtveter
    Here are my two cents:
    - The emails were not even seen due to it getting into the junk box
    - The email was not descriptive enough
    - Did you only send the emails once? Because email marketing does not work once, you need to resend more invitations multiple times to get their attention
    Hope that helps
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  • Profile picture of the author m1522632
    Ok, I see,

    I sent an email only once. It was descriptive enough but it could be that a lot of emails came to spam folder or were just ignored. Probably I need to send one more message and see the result.

    Should I try to compile such a list myself, e.g. find 200 email addresses and send out emails using my list (with good email addresses)?
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Grossman
    I'm guessing you didn't do any open tracking? That'll tell you whether people are actually getting the mails.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Originally Posted by m1522632 View Post

    What we did was we bought a marketing email list and sent approximately 30,000 emails to providers with an invitation to join our directory.
    You went wrong right here. Never buy email lists. Build your own from scratch. That money you spent to buy those 30,000 emails could've been used on a PPC campaign that could have gave you some real, qualified leads.
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    • Profile picture of the author m1522632
      Originally Posted by Randall Magwood View Post

      Never buy email lists.
      why never buy? It would take me forever to do it myself

      does it make sense to hire someone on Freelancer.com to build an email list for me or they will not do it well either?
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