First thing that comes to my mind when i think of e-mail marketing is SPAM and its consequences (primarily, problems with hosting providers, black listed and banned e-mail addresses, etc). Am I wrong? Could anyone share his positive experience of applying e-mail marketing and your effective techniques to avoid problems listed above? Or proof that my guess is correct. Thank you.
Email marketing is still a great income earner but you have to keep everything legal in order to avoid problems. I used to have an opt in mailing list and people complain about spam even after signing up themselves on the list. It seems they just forgot that they signed in. You have to continually remove the emails of people that opt out from the list. It was a lot of work. My experience with it was neutral, I didnt earned much and it was a lot of work. I didnt earned much, but I think that is was because the people to whom I was sending the email traffic was shaving me. Maybe working with better companies like clickbooth or azzogle you can get better results. After a while I dropped the list. But that is just my experience, according to sites like http://clickz.com/ email marketing is still a top earner.
I do email marketing, but only to those who have subscribed to receive newsletters. May be even content that isnt relevant to the newletter type, people tend to trust, read newsletters better than unsolicited mails.
Email marketing is great for delivering repeat visitors, and if you have an e-commerce site, that's exactly what you need for sales (average sale needs at least 5 or 6 visits) I've found the best way to build a list is from your own website, and of course make it 100% opt-in.
I send out our company newsletter monthly. And when I send out the newsletters, I see a spike of about 300% or more to the web site. Since the products we sell are in the thousandths of dollars range, it works out well. Of about 4,000 e-mails in our database, we do have to remove the returns, removals etc... As far as our ISP, I don't know what arrangement we have with them to send out the newsletter from our in house mail server.
newsletter/email marketing is STILL alive and kicking the key is making it targeted!!! and optin and legal.... Spam is out but good solid email campaigns are still in and CAN make you money.
email 'marketing' in any format is spam, a lot of sites will not let you sign up for their service unless you opt-in for their 'free newsletter'. I think any sort of legitimate advertising has been killed by spam. There are only so many times I need to hear about cialis, being hung like a horse and brilliant SEO. This is contridicting all the previous posters as I am usually the one receiving 'opt in targeted informational newsletters' and not using them as a promotional medium.
That not marketing that is spam.... I am talking about an real deal newsletter that doesn't just rehash info provided elsewhere or lets people know aobut the latest offers etc... and that is OPT-in not automatic.
Well ok, but would you go buying email lists if you don't have your own opt-in database? That would be spam I guess..
I was talking in general, as a lot of people abuse the mail/newsletter system. If however you geniuenly got the people to sign up for your newsletter and not through some trick (however innocent) then it's ok. What I'm saying is, be carefull, as most people react to newsletters with ... oh no spam ... and only then do they actually glance at it and possibly read it.
If you buy bulk list and single opt-in list, more times then not, your ad/email will be construed as SPAM. But if you are going to buy a list, you might as well make it worth your money, and reduce the risk by only buying targeted lists. Of course there will always be the risk of any email advertising you send out being called out as SPAM, no matter how targeted and relevant the ad/offer is to the recipient. Some people don't realize what they are opting into, or agreeing to when taking surveys or joining newsletters, etc. So when they get their first few email ads, they start screaming SPAM. But we have over 400 email marketing affiliates that would dispute any argument that email marketing has died or is no longer working. Sure it may have slowed down over time with all the new laws against spam as well as email filters and spam blockers. But if you can build a legitimate list and/or buy likewise lists, you will see results well above satisfactory that will make you a believer that, in fact, email marketing is still very much alive and effective. As with everything you do, approach email marketing with care, be can-spam compliant, don't flood your list with offers that have no relevance to them, and respect opt-out request.
I'm sure that there are a lot of companies that do legal e-mail marketing, however every time I needed to use someone's services I did not get clear answer if they were spammers or not.
The question is when does an email newsletter become email marketing. I would say that if the person receiving is getting useful information from you, you are on the right side of the newsletter / marketing equation. If you think of your opt-in list as a bunch of marketing targets, then (whether in legal fact or not) you are in the SPAM mindset that will ultimately work against you.
True, but no one minds getting interesting emails from their friends. If you act in a trustworthy way like a friend and deliver interesting information each time, your newsletter will no longer seem like a newsletter to those reading it. A case in point for me would be Jill Whalen's "High Rankings" newsletter. I don't always agree with her, but what she writes is valuable, timely and friendly.