Increase Sales by Asking Consumers for Their Communication Preferences

There are two incorrect ways marketers could react to increasingly common, and increasingly restrictive, do-not-call legislation. A marketer could ignore it and continue blasting her message indiscriminately, risking fines for extremely limited gains. It doesn’t matter if the thousands or millions receiving her message are interested or not; if they broadcast wide enough something will stick eventually, right? Or, a marketer could over comply, leaving sales on the table because he doesn’t know how to leverage established business relationship and other exemptions.

But you’re smarter than that. You’re interested in the opportunities available through compliance with do-not-contact and marketing privacy regulations to engage your existing customers and find the new leads that aren’t only interested, but need your products and are eager to buy.

And you’ve realized all the data in the world doesn’t compare to the 100% accurate and cheapest marketing strategy: asking the consumer.

In May, Emarkter.com released the results of a survey of online US adult mobile phone users that said found a 30% of the surveyed smartphone users were “at least somewhat interested” in receiving promotional texts. And 10% were extremely interested, which is twice as many as in 2009.

That means about a third of smartphone users in this country could be convinced not just to give you their email address or even their home phone number, but their cell phone number to receive marketing material from you in their pocket.

And in February, Ping Mobile released a survey that said 55% of American women would opt-in to receive mobile coupons, and 90% said they would be at least somewhat likely to redeem them.

All they want is for you to ask them first, and then keep the information interesting, relatively infrequent, and, most importantly, relevant to them.

Don’t be afraid to ask a consumer if they want to hear from you, and then the specific topics they’re interested in and how often they want to be contacted. Given the choice, most people want to hear from marketers; they just want to do so on their terms.

Forrester called this concept contact governance, and it guides the comprehensive consumer preference management capabilities offered by Gryphon. We’re not only interested in keeping you compliant with do-not-contact and marketing privacy legislation, we want you to earn consumers’ trust, confidence, and business by listening to consumer preferences.