Hi all, This is my first post asking for a bit of advice on email marketing. It's something that's been stumping us for a while so I wondered if you guys could help us out... We are currently trialling different forms of marketing to see what works best in terms of conversion rates to free advert registrations on wampit. We now want to trial an email marketing campaign. However it must be ethical, i.e. no spamming, and from opt-in lists only. Ideally we want a company to manage it end-to-end, i.e. source the addresses and send / track the emails. What are people's experiences with this, i.e. is it actually possible and worthwhile - if so can anyone recommend a good company they've worked with recently, and an indication on pricing. Our gut feel is that it's probably not possible, as even proper opt-in lists may have been over-used and subsequently worthless. Looking forward to your views / help on this topic... Kind regards Adam
I wouldn't go down this route. If people are 'opting in' they will be unique to your service, ie not having opted in to another list, so effectively a list wont exist until they have opted in - meaning you can only otherwise purchase lists and send bulk (spam) email and hope so many opt in. And that's just to get them on the mailing list. I would perhaps try other avenues. For example I just checked one of my drectory accounts and found 24 people in total have registered via my affiliate link, giving me 24 months of enhanced listing. (One month for every sign up my link generates). Why don't you do something similar? I got those just by dropping my link a couple of times in relevant forum posts (mostly on Sheffield Forum) and pointing people to a directory list on my website which has the link, plus yours and others of course. You could give incentives to current registrants whereby they receive an enhanced listing in return for referring people.
Email Marketing is good at establishing and maintaining contact with prospects and customers using data that is built up over a period of time or that you already own. It tends to have a negative impact if you use it for direct promotions to people you've had no prior contact with. As Indizine suggests, I'd recommend using other routes to promote registrations on your site - eg using the free adverts, and then using email marketing for follow-up and to drive conversions to paying customers. There is an email marketing demo on my site you can try out, see my website; link in my profile Regards
My experience is email marketing is good for communicating with existing customers and not very effective at recruiting new ones. I have tried both several times and we see a pretty good return from existing customers, but, as I said, trying to recruit using emails is a non-starter really.
Hi Adam, as someone who receives these type of mails rather than sends them my views are the same as those above. If I receive a mail from someone I already know then I will take the time to read it and see if there is anything new or exciting going on that I should know about. If I get a mail from a company I don't know then 99 x from a hundred I delete it without reading it. Sean
If they are reasonably OK then I tend to correct their grammar etc, then return them along with an offer to help them out... If they're rubbish I just bin them - but the thing I've NEVER done is buy anything!
Hands-up. I am responsible for Email Marketing...I will only work with people on their own data. In my opinion most data that is sold is never going to be the same as your own nurtured contacts. Your approach sounds like one of acquiring data and having a scatter gun approach. If I were advising you on marketing I would not be suggesting using email to acquire registrations. Email is good for: 1) Raising brand awareness 2) Improving customer retention / relationships. For introducing people to a web directory, I think most people would bin it. They don't know you. And they won't fancy clicking through. Spamming works on a low percentage of a high volume. Opt-in or not, to me it sounds like the same scenario as spam. Sounds like you need a marketing person that understands the processes instead of trying this and trying that. A couple of processes do match your requirements. It is not scatter gunning emails though.
I guess that you are a start up and therefore budgets are limited. Therefore, for reasons of quality control and cost I would not use a third party to execute an email marketing campaign. Instead you need to work out a system and then execute it yourself. However, I believe that you have some more general issues with your business proposition. They are: 1. How are you going to attract search traffic to your site? 2. Why do you stand out from other directory sites? 3. Your pricing suggests that you have gone done the high volume route but given 1 & 2 do you have sufficient funds to promote your venture.
Email Marketing is the wrong process. I am going to tell you what process you need. It is Advertising.
Hi everyone, Many thanks for your responses. We communicate with our existing customer base with a monthly email (newsletter) to update our customers on progress and loyalty offers. That seems to work really well and is good to keep interest going. I guess my gut feel regarding prospect emailing was right, i.e. a resounding no-go from you all! We do significant advertising (well significant for us) on Google Adwords but it's quite expensive. We also advertise in traditional media, and have had some good free editorial recently. We are really interested in progressing the affiliate route, and made contact with an affiliate company through a recommendation. They were going to put together a proposal but didn't come back to us! Sandie: do you have any company that you can recommend and I'll give them a call? Thanks again everyone for your help... kind regards, Adam
I wonder if perhaps a better way of email prospecting is to be introduced by someone they already know and trust? So basically you might offer a freebie to all subscribers of "Marketing 101 List" by Super Marketeer or choose a hit list of blogs you would like to be featured on or business partners you would like to work with. You wouldn't get direct access to their lists, but you could certainly send a press release and a special deal for them to feature? It's not really email marketing but it's certainly another way of reaching people via email.
Avoid the affiliate route like the plague, as they will misrepresent your business in order to drive clicks to your site that won't convert. John Lewis have recently dropped affiliate marketing because of the poor quality of the traffic it was generating. As you are operating a low price model and hence need a good volume of advertisers to make it pay, you need to spend some time and effort on some serious SEO so businesses looking for advertising find you. Telemarketing may also be an option but don't sell direct back to the website. Also advertising on other forums/media may be a good idea. The other issue is need to get the public to your site. Many good internet ventures fail because they do not generate users. So we are back to SEO again.
Email marketing is only good if your clients have actually requested for information from you via email. I would never go down the area of bought databases as they are never clean.
In its broadest sense, the term covers every email you ever send to a customer, potential customer or public venue. In general, though, it's used to refer to: -Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again. -Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship -Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other peopleInternet.
E-mail marketing is also help for both type business big or small and it is also effective marketing technique. I think E-mail marketing is also good because it has no any drawback for that is bad. It also sends to every customers personally so we have get good feedback from them. E-mail marketing is also low cost so every one can afford its cost, while it also fastest spreading and global reach.
Email marketing allows your company to maximize your advertising budget without sacrificing quality and coverage of customers. It generates rapid responses and leaves a digital footprint that can be measured instantaneously.
Personally speaking I would stay far from this kind of marketing. It puts people off. I know from experience when companies send marketing information daily in my inbox, they go straight in the spam folder. I don't even read them. A lot of people don't like this type of aggressive marketing it just looks like spam.
Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and any email communication that is meant to build loyalty, trust or brand awareness. Email is good because its helps to Raising brand awareness and Improving customer retention