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EMAIL MONEY!

"Effective Email Marketing"

Because email is the most common denominator on the Internet, we will begin our discussion on that topic.

Virtually everyone with Internet access has email access. This includes individuals using commercial online services, corporate email networks and a growing number of bulletin board services. Your proper use of email will represent the cornerstone of your Internet/online marketing plan.

Email is a very powerful business communication tool. Not only can it be used as an important part of your online marketing strategy, it can also be used to cut long distance fax and telephone expenses. Email messages can be sent to any email address, anywhere in the world with absolutely no long distance charges. If you replace 25% of your business long distance fax and telephone activity with email, your long distance expenses will decrease proportionately. As a hybrid of postal mail and the telephone, there is no doubt that email has at least the same value potential to business as the telephone did when it emerged some 100 or so years ago.

EMAIL AUTO-RESPONDERS

An Email Auto-Responder (also called Mailbots, Infobots and reflectors), is a small program on a service providers server that is set up to automatically respond to an email inquiry or request. They function in a manner similar to fax-on- demand systems. Like fax-on-demand, an auto-responder will instantly and automatically send a document to any user who sends an email request the auto-responder's email address. In fact it is even easier to use than fax-on-demand because there are no numbers to dial and no buttons to push.

Auto-responders are very important tools when you need to automate your Internet/online marketing efforts. Email auto- responders are at work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can easily process over 100,000 requests daily without any effort on your part. As stated earlier, virtually everyone with Internet access has email access. So, auto-responders allow you to provide automated document delivery service to the widest possible Internet audience.

SETTING UP AN AUTO-RESPONDER

Setting up an auto-responder is relatively simple. All you need to do is locate a provider who offers auto-responder services, complete a service application form, provide them with the document(s) you wish to have sent to individuals who send email to that specific auto-responder email address. One such service provider is ServInt. They offer a very comprehensive auto-responder service with request tracking capabilities (this lets you know who has requested your information and when by maintaining a log file in your FTP account directory. Their service rates are $18 per month with a one time $15 setup fee.

The $18 monthly fee allows you to set up two different email auto-responders. You may include as many documents as your storage space allows. For the complete description of the ServInt auto-responder service and application send email to: cybernet@servint.com put "info servnfo" in the message body. A complete listing of auto-responder service providers can can be found in the "eMarketing Success Guide".

EMAIL SIGNATURE FILE

An email signature or email sig file is a brief descriptive file that is appended (added) to the end of your out-going email messages. This is the universally accepted manner in which to publicize and advertise your company name, product/ services and contact information. You should try to keep your sig file to 8 lines or less. Your email signature file should contain the following minimal information.

Your company/organization name.
Your company/organization phone number.
Your email address.
Optionally, you may include:
A contact name.
Web site, FTP, Gopher site URL's.
(Universal Resource Locators)
Postal address.
Brief product/service description or motto.
Graphic design.
If you are the creative type, you can also incorporate a graphic design into your email signature.

You can also create alternate sig files that contain different advertising messages. Most email client software allows you to select from available sig files.

JUNK EMAIL

"One man's junk is another man's treasure"; so an old saying goes. But I add - "just be certain you send the right one to the right man!"

Junk email, like junk postal mail (snail mail), is viewed with the same disdain in cyberspace as it is offline. Let me re-qualify that statement; some Internet communities get down-right hostile when presented with unsolicited email whether it is in their email-box or in the newsgroups they frequent! The big difference is that you will get blasted with "flame" mail in a matter of minutes after your advertising message appears in the recipients' email-box or in the newsgroups, whereas with snail mail, it just gets tossed in the trash.

A "flame mail" or fiery message can range from a very mild "cut it out!" to a scorching four-letter filled message that is down-right offensive! Sending unsolicited email to 1000's of individuals email-boxes can have other negative effects as well. It can get your company name placed on a black-list. You may find YOUR email-box filled with millions of bytes of garbage or you may find a nasty letter from your Internet service provider chastising you for bothering people. You can avoid slipping into the "gator pit" by doing a little pre and post marketing research. You can build your own list by simply asking people if they would like to receive any of the information you have to offer, or make the people who do request your offers through your ads aware that you will keep them updated when you have other offers in the future. You should also beware when renting or buying email lists from third parties. Be sure you have it in writing that the individuals on the lists have consented to receiving offers from other companies. It can be pretty embarassing to pay good money for this type of list just to get flamed when you send your promotional material.

MARKETING WITH EMAIL

There are several ways you can use email in your online marketing efforts.

By obtaining a list of email addresses and sending your promotional material to the addressees. WARNING: Re- read the caution in the JUNK EMAIL section of this report!
By placing your ad copy with an electronic classified ad distributor. This is a service where your e-classified ad along with many others is sent to people who request the monthly listings, the ad listings are also placed on a well publicized web site as well as uploaded to popular commercial on-line services and large bulletin board services. This is a relatively low cost and effective method of getting high exposure fo your electronic classified ad.
For more information on this type service, send email to cybernet@servint.com put "info eclass" in message body. and leave the subject field blank. You will learn how to get your ad in the "eClassifeds" for 3 months FREE.
By placing you ad copy in various USENET newsgroups that do allow commercial advertising. Respondents will then request additional details by replying to a manual or auto-responder email address. Here are a few newsgroups that allow commercial advertising.
biz.americast
misc.entrepreneurs
alt.business.misc
The "eMarketing Success Guide" has a full listing of newsgroups and mailing lists that accept commercial advertising.
By placing classified ads in the classified areas and related forums of the commercial online services. i.e. CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy, Delphi, etc.
By placing classified ads in the FREE and low-cost classified areas of the World Wide Web network of the Internet. These classified ad listings are accessible to individuals who use Web browsers that allow them to view full color graphics, listen to audio files, and view FLI movies and animated graphics. The Web is at this writing the hottest network on the Internet! The "eMarketing Success Guide" has a full listing of the FREE and low-cost ad sources available via the World Wide Web.
By placing classified ads and ad copy in print and TV media. This will keep your exposure high and allow you to get your message in front of people not yet skilled or proficient enough to use the Web, but can use email. Each of the above methods allow the reader of your ad to respond by email. The email address they respond to may be a manual address or an auto-responder address.

TWO-STEP FREE OFFER METHOD

Currently, one of the most successful email marketing techniques in use is the "Two-Step Free Offer Method".

Here's how it works:

Write an informative 2 to 8 page report on a topic related to your product or service. For example, if you offer a Credit Rebuilding service or program, you may want to write a report about maintaining good credit along with some sources of available help in this area. The report should not be a disguised sales letter, it should be a well researched and informative report that will assist the reader in accomplishing a specific goal. Another example is if you write a book or guide, you can use one of the key chapters as the free report. At the end of your report, you should include resource information about your company; i.e. name,address,phone, email addresses, any URLs, etc. You will also want to include a brief description of your full product or service that the report is based on. This will also be the place to include pricing information and any special deals or discounts you will extend to the reader.
Write a short, but descriptive ad about the report and offer it FREE to those who request it via email. One important note if you decide to send a hard copy to the requesting party - DO NOT ask for $1 or $2 to cover shipping and handling! FREE means FREE. If you offer a FREE report in one breath and then ask for shipping charges in another, your credibility will go down the drain with the majority of the people who read your ad.
Place your classified ad or ad copy in any of the media sources discussed earlier.
Be sure to keep all inquiry information, i.e. email and/or postal addressess, names, etc. in some sort of database for future reference.

You should not attempt to sell or rent your customer email address list unless they have fully consented to having that information distributed. We have even gone so far as to create an electronic email form which asks people if they would be interested in receiving offers and information from other companies to which we distribute their email/postal address. This form is emailed to each person on our list. They must enter their name under a positive consent statement and send the form back to us in a reply message. These form messages are then stored to disk as back-up confirmation should any problems arise. If we do not get the form back, we do not include that person in the distribution list.

It can be extremely embarrassing to you if you rent a list out, accept payment for the rental, have the renter send their offer to the list and then get 'flamed' by the majority of the recipients on the rented email list. So save yourself some time and heartache and do it right the first time. Email address lists are discussed in detail in the "eMarketing Success Guide".