Home Why Email Marketing? The Power of Email Marketing Spam vs. Email The List to huge profits Build Targeted List How to Send Commercial Email How to Send Bulk Email Create Email that Gets Orders Putting It All Together Profit from Direct Email Bulk Email Handbook Word Wrap Do's and Don'ts of Bulk Email Effective Email Marketing Make Money with Junk Email Spamming Issues Disclaimer Contact Email Marketing Strategies Revealed EMAIL MONEY! - Effective Email Marketing! No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the express permission of the publisher. Because email is the most common denominator on the Internet, we willbegin our discussion on that topic and ... Virtually everyone with Internet access has email access. Thisincludes individuals using commercial online services, corporate emailnetworks and a growing number of bulletin board services. Your properuse of email will represent the cornerstone of your Internet/onlinemarketing plan. Email is a very powerful business communication tool. Not only can itbe used as an important part of your online marketing strategy, it canalso be used to cut long distance fax and telephone expenses. Emailmessages can be sent to any email address, anywhere in the world withabsolutely no long distance charges. If you replace 25% of yourbusiness long distance fax and telephone activity with email, yourlong distance expenses will decrease proportionately. As a hybrid of postal mail and the telephone, there is no doubt thatemail has at least the same value potential to business as thetelephone did when it emerged some 100 or so years ago. EMAIL AUTO-RESPONDERS An Email Auto-Responder (also called Mailbots, Infobots andreflectors), is a small program on a service providers server that isset up to automatically respond to an email inquiry or request. Theyfunction in a manner similar to fax-on-demand systems. Likefax-on-demand, an auto-responder will instantly and automatically senda document to any user who sends an email request to theauto-responder's email address. In fact it is even easier to use thanfax-on-demand because there are no numbers to dial and no buttons topush. Auto-responders are very important tools when you need to automateyour Internet/online marketing efforts. Email auto-responders are atwork 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 emailaccess. 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 dois locate a provider who offers auto-responder services, complete aservice application form, provide them with the document(s) you wishto have sent to individuals who send email to that specificauto-responder email address. One such service provider is ServInt. They offer a very comprehensiveauto-responder service with request tracking capabilities (this letsyou know who has requested your information and when by maintaining alog file in your FTP account directory. Their service rates are $18per month with a one time $15 setup fee. The $18 monthly fee allows you to set up two different emailauto-responders. You may include as many documents as your storagespace allows. For the complete description of the ServIntauto-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 befound in the "eMarketing Success Guide". HOW AUTO-RESPONDERS WORK The diagram below will give you a visual representation of howauto-responders function. An explanation follows the diagram. (4) Document sent to requestor |-------------------|<------------|------------------------| |email request from | |provider's host computer| |requestor's address| | | |-------------------|---^-------->|-----------------------^| | |(3) Document | (1) Request emailed ---| |--->|request processedÄ>| | |and sent to requestor (2) Request received |-|---------------------| at Provider's | Electronic Document | Host Computer. | on Provider's Host | | Computer | |-----------------------| So What's Happened Here? (1) Someone (requestor) sees your ad offering information or freereport or guide, etc., and they send an email request to the address(auto-responder's email address) specified in the ad or notice. Theemail message need not contain a subject or any message body text,only the auto-responder address, (i.e. gimme@cresnet.com). (2) The email request is received at the Provider's Host Computer.Because your account is named "gimme" the host's auto-responderprogram knows to send your document called "gimme". (3) The "gimme" document text is processed (placed into an out-goingemail format) and sent to the requestor (4) The message/document is received at the requestor's email address.They can then retrieve their email and read, save or print yourmessage/document. Time elapsed: Ranges from a few seconds to 24-hours, depending on thetype of auto-responder and distance between the host computers (thehost that holds your electronic document and the host that holds therequestor's email). EMAIL SIGNATURE FILE An email signature or email sig file is a brief descriptive file thatis appended (added) to the end of your out-going email messages. Thisis the universally accepted manner in which to publicize and advertiseyour company name, product/services and contact information. Youshould try to keep your sig file to 8 lines or less. Your emailsignature 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 an ASCIIgraphic design into your email signature. You can also create alternate sig files that contain differentadvertising messages. Most email client software allows you to selectfrom available sig files. NOTE: The entire signature file must be composed of ASCII text orsymbols. You will want to use a simple ASCII text editor like Notepad,found in Windows 3.1, or QEdit, which is an excellent sharewarepackage. There are many other plain text editors available. If youhave trouble locating one, you can call OppNet OnLine at(404)923-4750. After you logon go the the Files Menu and select theText Editors Library. Here are two Email Sig File examples: <-----------------------><--------------------------------> . The CyberNet Group | Email: cybernet@webcom.com . . 404-923-4121 | http://www.webcom.com/~cybernet/. . . . . . . . . . . . . | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Web Design - Electronic Marketing - OppNet . <-----------------------><--------------------------------> |--============--||--=========--| || 1-301-897-3282 || Internet Videos, Inc. || || http://www.webcom.com/~ivi || ---------------------- || || ivi@netcom.com || Novices to Navigators || |--============--||--==========-- | JUNK EMAIL "One man's junk is another man's treasure"; so an old saying goes. ButI add - "just be certain you send the right one to the right man!" Junk email, like junk postal mail (snail mail), is viewed with thesame disdain in cyberspace as it is offline. Let me re-qualify thatstatement; some Internet communities get down-right hostile whenpresented with unsolicited email whether it is in their email-box orin the newsgroups they frequent! The big difference is that you willget blasted with "flame" mail in a matter of minutes after youradvertising message appears in the recipients' email-box or in thenewsgroups, whereas with snail mail, it just gets tossed in thetrash. A "flame mail" or fiery message can range from a very mild "cut itout!" to a scorching four-letter filled message that is down-rightoffensive! Sending unsolicited email to 1000's of individuals'email-boxes can have other negative effects as well. It can get yourcompany name placed on a black-list. You may find YOUR email-boxfilled with millions of bytes of garbage or you may find a nastyletter from your Internet service provider chastising you forbothering people. You can avoid slipping into the "gator pit" by doing a little pre andpost marketing research. You can build your own list by simply askingpeople if they would like to receive any of the information you haveto offer, or make the people who do request your offers through yourads aware that you will keep them updated when you have other offersin the future. You should also beware when renting or buying email lists from thirdparties. Be sure you have it in writing that the individuals on thelists have consented to receiving offers from other companies. It canbe pretty embarassing to pay good money for this type of list just toget 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 yourpromotional material to the addressees. WARNING: Re-read the cautionin the JUNK EMAIL section of this report! By placing your ad copy with an electronic classified addistributor. This is a service where your e-classified ad along withmany others is sent to people who request the monthly listings, the adlistings are also placed on a well publicized web site as well asuploaded to popular commercial on-line services and large bulletinboard services. This is a relatively low cost and effective method ofgetting high exposure for your electronic classified ad. For more information on this type service, send email tocybernet@servint.com put "info eclass" in message body. and leave thesubject field blank. You will learn how to get your ad in the"eClassifeds" for 3 months FREE. By placing your ad copy in various USENET newsgroups that do allowcommercial advertising. Respondents will then request additionaldetails by replying to a manual or auto-responder email address. Hereare a few newsgroups that allow commercial advertising. biz.americas, misc.entrepreneurs, alt.business.misc. The "eMarketing Success Guide" has a full listing of newsgroups andmailing lists that accept commercial advertising. By placing classified ads in the classified areas and relatedforums of the commercial online services. i.e. CompuServe, AOL,Prodigy, Delphi, etc. By placing classified ads in the FREE and low-cost classifiedareas of the World Wide Web network of the Internet. These classifiedad listings are accessible to individuals who use Web browsers thatallow them to view full color graphics, listen to audio files, andview FLI movies and animated graphics. The Web is at this writing thehottest network on the Internet! The "eMarketing Success Guide" has a full listing of the FREE andlow-cost ad sources available via the World Wide Web. By placing classified ads and ad copy in print and TV media. Thiswill keep your exposure high and allow you to get your message infront 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 byemail. The email address they respond to may be a manual address or anauto-responder address. TWO-STEP FREE OFFER METHOD Currently, one of the most successful email marketing techniques inuse 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 yourproduct or service. For example, if you offer a Credit Rebuildingservice or program, you may want to write a report about maintaininggood credit along with some sources of available help in this area.The report should not be a disguised sales letter, it should be a wellresearched and informative report that will assist the reader inaccomplishing a specific goal. Another example is if you write a bookor guide, you can use one of the key chapters as the free report. At the end of your report, you should include resource informationabout your company; i.e. name, address, phone, email addresses, anyURLs, etc. You will also want to include a brief description of yourfull product or service that the report is based on. This will alsobe the place to include pricing information and any special deals ordiscounts you will extend to the reader. Write a short, but descriptive ad about the report and offer itFREE to those who request it via email. One important note if youdecide to send a hard copy to the requesting party - DO NOT ask for $1or $2 to cover shipping and handling! FREE means FREE. If you offer aFREE report in one breath and then ask for shipping charges inanother, your credibility will go down the drain with the majority ofthe people who read your ad. Place your classified ad or ad copy in any of the media sourcesdiscussed earlier. Be sure to keep all inquiry information, i.e. email and/or postaladdressess, names, etc. in some sort of database for futurereference. You should not attempt to sell or rent your customer email addresslist unless they have fully consented to having that informationdistributed. We have even gone so far as to create an electronic emailform which asks people if they would be interested in receivingoffers and information from other companies to which we distributetheir email/postal address. This form is emailed to each person on ourlist. They must enter their name under a positive consent statementand send the form back to us in a reply message. These form messagesare then stored to disk as back-up confirmation should any problemsarise. If we do not get the form back, we do not include that personin the distribution list. It can be extremely embarrassing to you if you rent a list out, acceptpayment for the rental, have the renter send their offer to the listand then get 'flamed' by the majority of the recipients on the rentedemail list. So save yourself some time and heartache and do it rightthe first time. Email address lists are discussed in detail in the"eMarketing Success Guide". Learn the secrets from the Pros. Free ebook on How to Bulk Email Tell-a-Friend