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USING E-MAIL TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS Like many Internet marketeers, you may work with a limited marketing budget. So how does the cost-conscious marketeer get the best free and low-cost exposure? Simple. By using various forms of the best free marketing tool ever invented . . . e-mail! There are many ways to use e-mail marketing. For the most part, e-mail marketing can be broken down into two distinct categories: Safe and Unsafe First a few words about "unsafe" - just to show you why it is a waste of time. Unsafe E-mail Unsafe e-mail marketing on the Internet usually takes on the form of "Unsolicited" or "Spamming". Whether you are doing it for yourself or hiring one of the thousands of e-mail blasting companies online, it makes no difference. It is NOT a smart way to market. If you send unsolicited e-mail to addresses that do not want commercial e-mail, not only do you risk the reputation of your business, you can get into more trouble than you would expect. What is unsolicited? If you don't have permission to send it or the recipient has not requested it, then it is unsolicited. What kind of trouble? Well, most ISPs do not allow this activity and they will terminate your dial-up account as soon as the inevitable complaints start to trickle in. Most will terminate, no questions asked. If you want results without the risk, you must use Safe E-mail Marketing Safe E-mail Safe (or opt-in) e-mail marketing takes many forms and it works. It means getting your e-mail to recipients who HAVE agreed to receive it. Not only do you get better results, you won't have to worry about ISP cancellation and, more importantly, the reputation of your business. Caution should be used when shopping for e-mail lists. Many people on the Internet simply "harvest" or extract e-mail addresses from a variety of sources and then sell these in the form of " safelists." Most often, they use the term "Targeted Bulk E-mail." In most cases, these are not safe at all and you run the risk of spamming complaints. Safe e-mail Marketing has three basic categories:
Paid Opt-In/safelists Paid Lead/List Rental or Purchase These are advertising lists set up on "list servers." "Serving the lists" means that all the e-mail sent to any list on their service is run through the list server's e-mail server. These companies do not charge a fee for setting up a mailing list. Their income is derived from ads on their Web site and at the end of e-mail messages sent through their server. Let's say you wanted to start an Opt-In list for people interested in travelling to China. You are the List Owner. You might choose Yahoo to be your List Server. So you would go to http://groups.yahoo.com and follow the instructions on setting up a new list. Then you might find ways to advertise your list in order to attract people who want to participate in an e-mail discussion or receive information about travelling to China. When e-mail is sent to the list server lists, it is sent to the listname@the list server.com. For example, if the "ChinaTravel" list was on Yahoo, you would post to it by e-mailing chinatravel@yahoo.com. These are the most popular list servers:- Although we will provide you with some lists where you can post your advertisements, you are advised to spend some time searching for lists at these Websites that relate to what you are promoting. For example, you would want to promote to groups of people who meet certain criteria, depending what you're marketing. If you're marketing high-tech products and services, you'd seek out groups that attract those people interested in high tech. You can search for categories of sites on each of the URLs above.The most important thing to remember is to READ THE RULES of each list. If it says "no advertising" and you break that rule, you may be banned from the list and possibly from the list server itself. Please do not attempt to harvest the e-mail addresses of the advertisers, and DO NOT, under any circumstances, send anyone of these advertisers a direct advertising e-mail. This is considered as "spamming" and at the very least you will be banned from the list. At the very worst, you could be reported to your ISP or to the company for whom you were advertising. But don't just look for lists that allow advertising. Every successful marketeer knows that regularly contributing to two or three discussion lists as part of his/her marketing strategy is part of what it takes to succeed. It's how you can start building your reputation. Read the postings for a week, then start to contribute. Make your posts thoughtful, succinct, and a valid contribution to the list. When you do that, you can safely include your e-mail Signature Tag, which is just like discreetly slipping a business card into the palms of everyone on the list. In order to join a list, you must subscribe to it. And in order to subscribe to a list, you must be a member of the List Server Community. There are explicit instructions on each of the URLs above on how to join their community and, subsequently, how to join a list. You will want to make sure you use a different e-mail account when you join these lists, especially if you are joining advertisement lists. This is because you will receive tons of e-mail and you won't want it cluttering up your primary e-mail box. To cut down on the incoming e-mail, set your preferences in your List Server account to "digest" or "web only" - some servers do not allow this latter option but most do. The "digest" setting means that you'll only get one or two e-mails a day with the individual posts grouped together whilst the "web-based" format will enable you to choose when to login and read the list mail. Paid safelists Mailing to paid safelists works basically the same as free ones. The difference is that you pay for the privilege of doing so, and you know that everyone on the list is a marketeer just like you. These lists are usually moderated to a certain extent and are more restricted in terms of the number of times per week you can mail to the list. In some cases,
you would simply buy the list instead of subscribing to the safelist.
This is definitely a BUYER BEWARE option. Consider the list source
very carefully. If you do not see the words "this is opt-in" then you should
run the other way. Make sure that a list you are purchasing is truly an
opt-in list where the recipients have agreed to receive your ads, and not
just a list of harvested names and addresses. The latter would again get
you into trouble with your ISP. If you can't tell from the advertisement
or the Website, write to the site owner and ask what the procedure is for
someone opting in to the lists he's selling. If you don't get a clear
cut answer, with a step-by-step procedure that you could follow to opt
in to the list yourself, then don't buy it.
Safe lists range in price from $5 and up. There is a tendency to think that paid lists are more productive. We tend to agree. Another feature of most opt-in safelists is that there is usually a reseller program and you can earn commissions by referring others. Usually, after introducing the safelist to a couple of people, you have earned enough commission to recover your cost, with the potential of much more. Many paid list managers offer incentives and bonuses in the form of software, marketing tools, and/or cash, as an incentive to join or buy the list. Many people like the idea of getting in on a new list because of the initial excitement and freshness. Others like long-standing lists because of their stability and reputation. Most safelists have posting restrictions and you will see these when you subscribe. One of the most important rules for the safelists where you do the actual mailing is that you must include the safelist Disclaimer at the top of the e-mail, such as: "You are receiving this as a member of ABC safelist" or "Dear ABC safelist members." If you forget this link, you will likely be accused of Spam, and there's nothing anyone can do to protect you. You just can't forget! You should write your ad to include a link to your Website and an e-mail address to contact you for more information. To establish dialogue, you may prefer to have them contact you first before you send them to a site. You will find a comprehensive directory of Safelists in the Safe & Opt-in Lists section of the Member Support Center. By taking advantage of all of these, free and paid, you will gain access to approximately 75,000 people at the click of a button. Lists Rental In addition to list servers and safelists, there are many reputable companies who rent out their lists. These companies have collected hundreds of thousands of e-mail addresses by advertising big-name or popular products and services, offering free newsletters, holding contest drawings, and many other methods. These companies usually ask these people to fill out a form on their web site, giving as much personal information as possible, along with a brief questionnaire about their interests. This allows them to offer several different categories of lists to those who rent them. So, not only is the list "Opt-In" but it can be highly targeted as well. You'll pay more to rent the list, but you won't find a better targeted audience for the money. List rental services generally do the mailing for you, so you don't have access to any of the names - you just have the company send your mailing to the list (hence the term "rental"). SendMoreInfo.com - the most highly recommended - has many attractive features:
They have an excellent system to manage your mailing. YOU decide how many leads in each category you want to mail to, and when the mailing will go out. You can mail the balance of your purchase over any period of time. For instance, if you don't like your results from one category or the ad you used on your first batch, then you can try again on another category. You can track how many people have clicked on your link, so you can tell if people are actually reading your e-mail. E-mail "Adblasts" Adblasts are when someone does a mailing for you. Remember when you do a mailing that it is crucially important to have a great eye-catching headline and a good ad. If you mailing isn't successful, you may need to change your headline and/or ad. Here are some of the leading safelist / mailing services:- |