An essential component of any email based communication strategy is the necessity to gather and maintain an accurate, current database of your customers’ email addresses.

Striata offers many services and strategies in this regard, including the ability to match your current customer database against extensive existing email databases in the US. Through a series of partnerships and relationships, Striata is able to match, gain opt-out permission and deliver between 10% to 25% of your customers email addresses within 30 days.

All email addresses will be tested as accurate and opt-out (or opt-in) permission gained to receive email communication from your company, with your own copy, creative and corporate branding. (You only pay for successfully matched email addresses.)

Process Overview
The solution utilizes industry-leading proprietary matching logic and an expansive group of permission compiled email databases to overlay email addresses onto your existing customer file using first name, last name and physical address. This acquisition process yields quality email addresses at a very low price, enabling you to maximize all of the cost saving and efficiency benefits of replacing paper and postage customer communication with securely encrypted email documents.

How it works
The process involves matching to your customer file with a series of databases containing permissioned email addresses. An invitation / permission email campaign will be created and sent to all matches - essentially a polite request to your customers to send commercial emails to them in the future. This invitation email will be CAN SPAM compliant and contain a clear opt-out option. The process involves both data handling and mailing setup which are done in parallel.

Specific steps include:

Customer File Delivery: Your company will provide a customer file including First Name, Last Name, Terrestrial Address and any other demographic fields necessary for personalization. Striata supports multiple delimited formats and secure data transfer methods

Matching: The file will be run through proprietary matching logic to match your customer records against a series of databases and flag all corresponding email addresses. This can be done at the individual or household level, the difference simply being that individuals require an exact match with first and last name, along with postal address, while households require only postal address plus LAST name.

Match / Suppression File Load: The resulting file is loaded into the system with email syntax errors and duplicates removed upon upload. The unsubscribe file will be suppressed and provided along with your customer file of usable email addresses.

Count Approval: Once a customer segment has been created, the count will be submitted to you for approval, detailing the number of records matched minus any suppressions on upload or from the unsubscribe scrub.

Creative Review and Compliance: Striata will create the necessary emails required for this process, with input from your creative, marketing and corporate communications divisions. We will also review the copy and creative from both a best practice and compliance perspective and explain any recommended revisions. Striata will ensure that the email is fully CAN-SPAM compliant.

Quality Assurance: Prior to deployment, the email campaign will be run through a series of quality reviews including spell check, HTML and link validation as well as content evaluation to identify potential spam triggers / filtering issues. The mailing (including HTML, Text, and Rich Text versions) will also go through an extensive testing process in a variety of email clients on different operating systems and within different browsers. Full Striata eMail Deliverability services will be utilized.

Deployment / Net File: After the introductory email is sent, there will be a seven day opt-out period. At the conclusion of the seven day opt-out period, the net quantity of email addresses that did not bounce or opt out will be counted as subscribers that can be added to the master file. Striata will provide you with that net file, along with a file of unsubscribes so that you can apply them to your suppression files. For the next four weeks following the deployment, we will continue to supply you with incremental unsubscribe files that resulted from the initial invitation mailing. You only pay for successfully matched email addresses.

Invitation / Permission Message Composition
Every element of the message is critical as it is what will prompt your customers to receive email communication from you. It is essential that the subject line of each email be inviting and comprehensible; that the relationship between you and the intended recipient is made clear and above all that your brand is prominently identified. Your customers recognize and trust your brand, and we will make sure to emphasize it in the ‘from’ name, subject line and body of the message.

Our research over the years indicates that it costs an organization between $1.50 and $5.00 to organically gather customers’ email addresses. Striata is able to provide these email addresses at a fraction of the cost, and within 30 days.

Please contact us should you require additional information in this regard.