I'm contemplating using an opt-in service that sends an HTML or text email to hundreds or thousands of their "subscribers" who have opted in to receive emails from them. Do they actually work though? As far as conversion rate and clicking my ad in the email and then signing up at my site what could I expect?
I'm a faithful subscriber to a few newsletters. Some more than a couple of years now. Does this give you encouragement? I'm a subscriber of a couple of yahoo groups, even though I never say anything much anymore on them, I still enjoy reading them after all these years
1. Email ads generate clicks. The rate of conversion from clicks into signups or sales depends ONLY on YOU (on your landing page). 2. The result depends very much on you. Depends on what YOU promote, depends on how good is YOUR ad copy (including the headline), depends on YOUR landing page, depends on how YOU choose the audience (for example, choose an ezine whose topic is related to whatever you offer). 3. No serious email marketing service will guarantee you results (clicks) except for get paid to read (GPTR) programs or disguised GPT programs (example Solo-Ads Ezine). Only they guarantee you hits, no matter what you do, because their subscribers didn't subscribe to READ but to GET CREDITS. They get credits by clicking on the links.
Hey there great question. I really thing there is not limit to the number of subscribers that can bring you a sale. you can get 10 highly responsive subscribers and you can get over 1000 subscribers who don't buy anything. It depends on how targeted your email marketing campaign is, relevancy and also the quality of information you get to offer your opt in mailing list. Show your initiative to offer value and be certain that sales will come rushing down your way.
If you have a list of 100k myspace kids, they ain't gonna buy much. If you have a list of 500 people who NEEDS a cure to their back pain RIGHT NOW - they're gonna buy it if you're offering it to them. List size doesn't matter.
I think it works well. I use RSS to Email services on my site and saw many subscribers, even from the first day. I think maybe sticking in some ad links would also be beneficial. Certainly worth a shot.
You say, "...an opt-in service that sends emails to hundred of subscribers who have opted in to receive emails from them..." That sounds to me like a safelist. Yet most of the comments here seem related to creating your own opt-in list, which is completely different. I have my own opt-in newsletter, plus I also do extensive safelist marketing, too... but they are completely different forms of email marketing. And how you market to them is also completely different. For your own opt-in list, you would use an auto-responder, then create a set of pre-written emails (usually 7-10, minimum, though I've seen up to 250) which are sent to each "opt-in" member, automatically (thus, auto-response, i.e., in that it responds automatically and individually to each person that has opted in). The best offer valuable information related both to your site and a product/s you sell. Within those emails -- or in addition to them -- you can also send your list recommendations for various products that you promote. A safelist is an independent program in which each person agrees upon joining to accept the emails from all other members. Upgraded members can usually send more emails than free members. But all can send them. Until a few years ago, this was considered a rather poor form of marketing because, basically, everyone SENT to the list, but everyone ALSO deleted all the other emails without ever opening them. Except a few newbies. It was right up there with FFAs for a 'good idea, gone wrong.' However, one day a programmer decided that if there was a credit link within each email -- and members had to click on the link in order to earn credits to then send THEIR emails -- the emails would become much more effective. Especially if, upon clicking on that link, the member also visited the senders site-of-choice for a set amount of time. Thus, at least the sender received some traffic for his efforts. Now safelist marketing is making a big come-back. I belong to about 25 of them, myself. Some are better than others-- the big key is figuring out which ones have memberships that will actually look at the emails and click on the links. But, when sending emails to a safelist, it must be understood that all the other members are also marketers and, usually, pretty savvy ones at that. In this case, it's much better to write short, almost splash-page style emails, with just a few lines. Longer emails will not be read and, usually, people won't even bother clicking the link if it's beyond the first fold. I know this differs from what ezine ads says, but these are also different from the GPT email systems, too. There's a lot more I could add... but I'll leave it at that for now. Cheers! Mo
they DO work - you just have to do them correctly and have an up to date data list. doing them correctly is not easy but keep in mind: - good design - catchy subject with no spam words - clear call to action
What you described as being a safelist works exactly as a GPTR emails program and differs not from what I said but from regular safelists. When you send an email to the subscribers of a GPTR emails program ... it really doesn't matter anything. It doesn't matter the headline, it doesn't matter the ad copy. The people will click anyway on your link because they get credit. However, ... honestly this is NOT email marketing. It's very similar with the manual traffic exchanges. When I was saying that "the result depends on you" I was writing about email marketing (including of course ezine advertising). What can be added about the safelists is that smart programmers designed also tools that join for you safelists, confirm for you the membership and delete one time per day all the junk from your Inbox. The junk being considered what other people sent to you expecting you to read and maybe click on their link and buy something or signup for a certain program ... This is a truth that has to be told to the people, so that they know what to expect from many safelists.
I think it all depends on the opt-in service, as a number of people here have said. If it's a site's newsletter with a list of readers who subscribed for content, then it's probably a good investment, especially if the niche is very closely related to yours. That's basically advertising in someone else's email campaign. If it's more of a safelist as discussed above, it's much less likely you'll get great results because people are signing up for the list, not the content and what they are looking for is unlikely to be found at your website. One other thing to note is that if the subscribers for the opt-in list are drive there by content, and you are in the same niche, consider beginning to build a list of your own. It may take some time but if it's a popular topic with subscribers to another site, think of the benefits you can have by creating your own email list of people who are interested in hearing from you directly, not in another 3rd party email.
I think that it is one of the most important things to do. If you build a responsive list, you will never need money again!
No bias here ezine ads huh? Of course someone who operates an ezine advertising site is going to say that all other forms of email advertisement are garbage. As the operator and co-owner of a large safelist I can say that what trackermo stated about utilizing safelists is spot on. While my safelists are not credit based (I believe credit based lists to be to closely related to gpt to operate in that manner, point ezine ads) the users can be very responsive if, and this is a big IF, your message is clear, concise and highly polished. Just as with any form of IM you'd better know how to market your product and your message better be compelling otherwise you are just wasting your time. That said you shouldn't limit your advertising to one site or one technique. Utilize everything safelists, ezine's, build opt-in lists, article marketing, ppc, seo, bum and affiliate marketing. What works for one product may not work for another so try everything to find out which works best for your niche and or product and stick with it.
It all depends on how much it is, firewolf08. Many who have signed up for a newsletter, or whatever, lose interest and they no longer open up their e-mail. Many use throw-away addresses, like Yahoo or G-mail just to read a couple of newsletters, and then stop. They use these addresses because they are afraid of getting spam or "junk" along with the newsletter in their real address box. So, if you pay, for say, 5,000 addresses, it could land up being, say, half that. You just lost money! I'm an advertiser, and I would never use them. In my opinion this form of advertising is highly overrated, along with webmasters using an opt-in form to make a list. Try it anyway, but be careful!
You're wrong 1) I never said that "all other forms of email advertisement are garbage". 2) I don't believe that ezine advertising is the best form of email marketing. 3) I only believe that ezine advertising is better than GPTR emails and safelists. Some of the reasons are already shown in my above post and also in meaghannf's post. Oh, yeah, here you're right. What's missing though is that any advertiser has to take very much into consideration his own skills. That's why I said in my first post that the result depends very much on YOU. For example ... If for a certain advertiser is very hard to write a few words others that "Me too" and "Thank you for your great post" then of course that advertiser should not try article marketing. If for another advertiser seo is a kind of Leo, then of course that SEO doesn't work for him or her. And so on ... The result depends on you, on what you know, on your skills. Some forms of advertising that normally work for almost anyone, may not work for you. Ezine advertising can get you better results that GPTR emails. But if you don't know to write anything and you're just a copycat, then don't try ezine advertising, it may not work for you, try GPTR emails because there it doesn't matter what you write. [Hey, adorton, for avoidance of any doubt, by YOU here I don't mean adorton ]
How do I do e-mail marketing if I dont have an opt in list and neither want to spam. What is the most effective way? Also what is the average CPM to get your message sent on an e-zine?
You buy from webmasters who DO have such a list. You put your ads in their newsletters. But why are you asking this if you already know? It is not spam if the webmasters tells his subscribers there will be ads in his letters. But not many do anyway, so.... Get your ad(s) critiequed first. Your ad(s) will do you no good if it is pure crap. Don't advertise in newsletters that already have ads in them. The more ads the letter has, the odds of you getting a response are at 0. It's bad enough if you are the only advertiser. Now how do we know that??? You have to shop around and ask. Each webmaster has different rates.
This piece of advice is weird. Sounds like "Advertise in newsletters that don't have ads in them". If a newsletter doesn't have ads, then the publisher doesn't sell advertising space (therefore you cannot buy ad space, so how can you advertise?) or no one wanted to buy that ad space (therefore why would you want to do it? There may be a reason for people not wanting to buy, right?) Let's revise your piece of advice ... If you want to buy classified ads ... don't buy such ads in newsletters that publish more than 4-5 ads per issue. Otherwise, if your ad is inside a sea of ads, you have small chances to get a good result. If you want to buy solo ads ... don't advertise in newsletters that publish more than one solo ad per day. If you can afford to wait, then advertise in newsletters that send maximum 1-2 solo ads per week. In such cases, the waiting time can be weeks or even months. If you're in a hurry, then advertise in newsletters that send maximum 1 solo ad per day.
People who subscribe to newsletters do not want to read a bunch of ads in it. If he puts his ad in a newsletter that has, say, 2 ads already in it, his chances of his ad getting read are very slim, to none. Does this really have to be explained?