Thoughts on Marketing

Consumer vs Business Emails

The pros and cons of blocking non-business emails on your webforms

[Originally published as The Marketing Mix newsletter on Substack]

Do you accept consumer emails* on your webforms? Or do you force potential customers to use a business address?

For B2B demand generation, the two sides of the argument are: consumer emails are often junk; but rejecting them adds friction to the sign-up process. So how do you decide?

Who’s your audience? For a high-ticket item, or one that will need a purchase contract, then business-only may be the way to go. But if the buying decision can be made lower down the corporate ladder, then the balance swings in favor of allowing consumer.

Are you in an industry that values privacy? Then you’ll find a lot of people using ‘burner’ emails to protect their inbox – another vote for consumer. And don’t forget that an academic audience will need .edu on the ‘allowed’ list.

Check the data. If you’ve been running campaigns for a while, you already have the info you need. Take 6 months of submittals, and see how they flow through the buyers journey. What % of consumer emails failed to reach a demo (for example) vs those with a business email? How many bounce?

If in doubt, then start with a wide net. Let anyone register. And go back and look at the data a few months in.

*I’m talking gmail, hotmail, yahoo and so on.

The other side of the mic

I was recently interviewed on the “How to Scale a Business” podcast. We talked about the best approach for a scrappy tech company; the value of focusing on just 1 or 2 channels to get started; and the power of consistency in B2B marketing.

Listen Now

Back to being old fashioned

I’m testing out some recipes for this year’s Thanksgiving cocktail. Only a couple of weeks to go! I have a few on my list, but a strong contender is an Apple Maple Old Fashioned.

  • 2 oz Bourbon*
  • 1-2 oz Cold-pressed apple juice
  • 1 tsp Maple syrup
  • Aromatic maple bitters (or any fruit/nut bitters)

*I picked up a bottle of Wayne Gretzky Maple Barrel whisky at Toronto airport on a whim.🍁🏒 And it works really well in this cocktail…but I wouldn’t recommend buying it just for this.😏

The beauty of this cocktail? If you’re mixing it for guests, it’s easy to make it sweeter or punchier just by changing the amount of apple juice in the mix.

Cheers! 🥃

Steve

P.S If you know you need to take marketing seriously, but don’t know where to start, let’s chat. I help growing B2B tech companies build their marketing muscles.

P.P.S If you’ve enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to The Marketing Mix newsletter – my thoughts on B2B marketing, sent out every 2 weeks.