Email Marketing Resources & Techniques

• Introduction
• Listserves
• Autoresponders

Introduction:

Do you receive junk email? Don't you hate it? To use email for marketing, you should NOT send unsolicited bulk email. You should use "Permission E-Mail Marketing". That is, you only send emails to people who either ordered something from you - or who signed to your newsletter (opt-in).

It is also recommended to confirm that the person who has submitted the email is indeed the actual owner of this email address. You do it by sending (automatically) an email asking to confirm subscription - usually by clicking on a link. This technique is called "Double Opt-in". You should always stress, that you respect privacy of your subscribers. And always give them an easy way to unsubscribe.

There are many ways in which you can use email for marketing:

• sending an email to your mailing list (one-time events, periodic newsletter (ezine), or email promotion campaigns, which is usually a sequence of emails sent over period of several weeks to promote certain event (usually includes a pre-launch, a launching period, and Oops-extension)).
• sequential autoresponder - each new subscriber or buyer gets a sequence of several (6..20 - and more) emails asking for feedback or offerring some other products or services
• a mailing list - like a forum or bulletin board - but via email. Subscribers can send emails to the list. Usually moderated by the owner. Subscription can be either via email on on a web site.

You will end up having many lists (for example, free subscribers vs paying customers, different products, etc.). You will need to be able to manage those mailing lists (for example, merge, remove duplicates, etc.). And if you also doing offline busines - you will have offline lists as well.

You should be able to track how many people have opened your email (usually by including a small image in the HTML body of your email), and how many people have acted (click-through - clicking on the link which is tagged for tracking purposes), or bought.

Another challenge is to outsmart the spam filters. It is not just a matter of the words you use. For example, big providers (like AOL) will filter you out if you send too many emails simultaneously. So you must have a mechanism to throttle your distribution (send in small chunks).

Once you have all your software systems and processes in place - there are still many things to take care of:

• How to grow your mailing lists: opt-in forms on every web page, and on pop-ups (exit pop-up, delayed pop-up, giving reasons, offer free bribes, offer a free email minicourse, ask for minimum information, reassure your respect to privacy, use viral techniques - ask to enter three people who may be intersted)
• How to write your newsletter - do it frequent enough (several short emails is usually better than one long), discipline, finding free content, be yourself, your personality. People buy from you, because they know you, like you, and trust you. Create relationship with your list. Treat your list as your best friend. Keep archive of old newsletters.
• Format - text or HTML, short vs long, sending just a link to a web page with your newsletter, using graphics to show the "forbidden" words (like "FREE").
• Sending audio postcards - a short email with a link to the web page with the web page, which has text and audio on it.
• Using email for ASK campaigns - surveys to get ideas for building new products or improving existing ones.
• Art of copywriting - how to write so that people will read the whole message - and act (buy). Grabbers. Subject lines. Titles / Headlines (pre-head and sub-head), P.S.
• Techniques to structure a winning email marketing campaign or autoresponder campaign.

Listservers:

Listservers - programs to send many emails. Usually can automatically handle bounced emails. Modern programs usually have administrative interface via browser.

Autoresponders - programs which allow to send a series of emails structured in time to elicit better response. These email marketing campaigns can be personalized with the receiver's name, date when he signed, etc. - so the emails may look like personal emails. Typical example - a person enters his email on a web page to subscribe to a free mini-course. Autoresponder will send a series of emails.

Here are some good software packages:

• www.lyris.com - Lyris ListManager - a really good software if you have 100,000 (or more) mailing list. It is a high-performance email marketing application that allows you to create email campaigns, newsletters, and discussion groups. It can be administered via browser, and has many useful features (like automatically dealing with bounced emails). You can install it on your own server - or outsource it (Lyris offers ListHosting service with ListManager software). Lyris separately sells their MailEngine (high-performance SMTP mailer) and MailShield (email filtering applications that can block spam, prohibit mail relaying, and avert mail bomb attacks).
• www.autoresponseplus.com - excellent software. Can handle large lists, has convenient list management, and - unlimited autoresponder !!.
• www.aweber.com - $20/mo for an autoresponder with 6 followups

Here are more examples:

• 1ShoppingCart -
• www.topica.com - Topica Email Publisher (free Topica Exchange)
• http://groups.yahoo.com/ - Yahoo! Groups - free (yahoo bought
• Gammadyne Mailer -
• Mailloop 5.0 -
• ProAutoResponder -
• Majordomo - very simple perl script

* eGroups - bought by Yahoo! - http://groups.yahoo.com/local/news.html
* OneList - bought by Yahoo! - http://groups.yahoo.com/
* Topica - wcww.topia.com - 
* ListBot - bought by Microsoft - www.listbot.com
* CoolList - www.coollist.com/
* Envoy Mail - www.envoymail.com - www.envoyinc.com
* LSoft ListPlex - www.lsoft.com/EASE-head.html - 
* PostMaster General - www.postmasterdirect.com
* SparkList - (uses Lyris) - www.sparklist.com - 
* UnityMail Express from MessageMedia - www.messagemedia.com/solutions/unitymail/um_express.shtml
* Revnet Groupmaster - www.groupmaster.com/html/hosting.html - 

Autoresponders:

• http://www.autoresponseplus.com/
• www.1shoppingcart.com -
• www.hotresponders.com - this is what Frank kern is using
• www.getresponse.com - 
• www.google.com/search?q=autoresponders&cat=gwd%2FTop - list of autoresponders on Google
• www.sendfree.com - autoresponder ad exchange

How to run a mailing list - and some history:

The simpliest way to run a mailing list is to do it manually from your email program (for example Outlook). Send your email newsletter to yourself, and put all other addresses in the Bcc: field so the whole list isn't visible to the recipients. As your list grows, you will need some tools to merge the lists, for example:

• www.arialsoftware.com -  Campaign
• www.alphasoftware.com/netmailer/ -  NetMailer

Further you may find a Web hosting which would provide you with a mailing list functionality (for example Majordomo - a simple C/Perl script) for ~ $10..20/mo - or free, if you already use their hosting. Having mail-list server will allow recepients to subscribe/unsubscribe by themselves - a must for a large list.

There are also some services out there which will serve your mailing list for you -Yahoo and other search engines will give you lists of companies which provide service for smaller newsletter and discussion lists, too. Search for "listbot" on  www.wilsonweb.com  to see some links. Some of these services are absolutely free, for example ListBot, - but will include some advertising.

* eGroups - bought by Yahoo! - http://groups.yahoo.com/local/news.html
* OneList - bought by Yahoo! - http://groups.yahoo.com/
* Topica - wcww.topia.com - 
* ListBot - bought by Microsoft - www.listbot.com
* CoolList - www.coollist.com/
* Envoy Mail - www.envoymail.com - www.envoyinc.com
* LSoft ListPlex - www.lsoft.com/EASE-head.html - 
* PostMaster General - www.postmasterdirect.com
* SparkList - (uses Lyris) - www.sparklist.com - 
* UnityMail Express from MessageMedia - www.messagemedia.com/solutions/unitymail/um_express.shtml
* Lyris - www.lyris.com - 
* Revnet Groupmaster - www.groupmaster.com/html/hosting.html - 

e-mail campaign provider:
* eGain Communications - www.egain.com - 
* Exactis.com - www.exactis.com = www.experian.com
* Kana Communications - 

Misc. Good Resources:

Everything Email - resource with many links, but strangely lacking main industry workhorses like sendmail, qmail, lyris, listserv, etc. Looks like the site is compiled by a non-technical person targeting small user.
  * http://everythingemail.net/ -
  * http://everythingemail.net/email_software.html -
  * http://everythingemail.net/email_services.html -
  qpopper
cyrus

Cloudmark SpamNet

vpopmail homepage ( http://www.inter7.com/vpopmail )
qmail@planetsites.com - mailing list
Security and encryption:  OpenPGP and S/MIME formats.
vCard - and vCalendar formats to distribute info about the person and scheduling info.
Mailbox formats:
  mbox (ant many variations of it) - many messages in one file
  MH - each message in a separate file
  Maildir - to be used with qmail - an enhancement of MH format.
  Mailcap files

Laws:

New law December 2003. Against big spammers. Outlaws obvious spamming tactics. Normal people don't have to worry. To further protect yourself - when sending unsolicited mail - make sure to include your contact info.

How to go though spam checkers:

http://samspade.org/ - useful tools, for example to check if your domain is black listed

http://nitrolistbuilder.com/spamcheck.htm

http://nitrolistbuilder.com/call.htm

• Don't send your email from abroad.
• Don't send more than ~25,000 emails per day - big vendors (liek AOL) will start blocking you.
• Free spam-checking service: Write the word TEST in CAPS in the Subject line, followed by your normal subject line, send your email you want to be evaluated to: spamcheck-esales2@sitesell.net. You'll get a reply back, usually within 60 minutes, and it will explain in English what your email scored and what to fix.
• modify words so that the filters don't recognize them: M@ney, bus_iness, fr~ee, freee, Entre_prenuers, etc. (this may stop working pretty soon).

Buying lists:

• http://nitrolistbuilder.com/ - offer lists and autoreponder (AutoResponse Plus software)

http://www.coregistrationservices.com/
http://www.getresponse.com/
http://www.autoresponseplus.com/

© 2003 Selectorweb, Inc.