Email Marketing

Boogga

Do you guys use email as a marketing tool? If so, how do you go about it?

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"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees"

GregS

You mean buying mailing lists and spamming the universe?

Or collecting email addresses by some sort of form on your website?

Depends on what you want to do.

Years ago when I had the mailorder company I used to collect email addresses from people who signed up for a 'flyer' on my site (this was 1996).

I created a mailing that had lots of relative industry information and put my own spin on it and then peppered prices for various items around the whole thing. Was quite successfull, until that market ended (the proprietary computer market was a tough gig)

I have plans for doing something simular with my current company, but it's a little more difficult to not get deleted from someones emailbox these days.

L. B. Condulet

If you want to do bulk mailing, you need a "bulletproof mail server" and "bulletproof hosting".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_hosting

GregS

Uh..

Boogga

I mean, I'm selling a product and want to sell it obviously, and hence want to email people about the product hoping they are interested in buying. So going back to my original question, how would you go about doing this?

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"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees"

Bryan C

Most people don't respond to email spam...

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Bryan Corns
Owner, Hydroblast Pressure Cleaning Inc.
Indianapolis Power Washing Contractor
YouTube Video

GregS

You would need a legitimate way to get the email addresses in the first place.

If you purchase a list of bulk addresses you would essentially be spamming, and spamming many many many unqualified leads.

Try participating in forums local to your area to drum up business.

JumboJack

Spam spam spamspam.Spam spam spam spam,"Spam spam spamspamspam".
Spam spam spam?...Spam spam spam spam!

I agree,I don't know of anyone that respond to spam...A lot don't even get to read it as most have spam filters.

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in texas with framing and cornish people will do it for 3.00 a foot. What do yall think about that? Just laber

Mike Finley

Well, you can start with emailing it to people you know and know their email addresses. After that most everything is illegal. You do know it's illegal to send unsolicited emails right?

There are services called opt in marketing where companies will sell you their services and let you send your message to their gathered lists.

You can also find a lot of places that will allow you to put your add on their email newsletters. For instance if Nathan here had a email newsletter that he sends out with 10,000 names on it, and he was selling advertising spots on it you would buy one.

DamionR

Here's a few ideas:

1) Do you have a website for your products? Is it getting traffic? That's the first step. On the site, you need an irrisistable offer, to get the visitor to give you their email address, in exchange for something (such as a downloadable PDF file, or catalog, etc.)

2) Remember, people don't care about you, or your products, or how great you are, or anything like that. They care about one thing - What's In It For Me? Keep this in mind with your email messages. Benefits, benefits, benefits.

3) Search for email marketing tips to get some ideas.

4) If you do not have a list currently generated, or building, then you have one option. Partner with someone who alrady has the list. In direct-style marketing, there's the golden rule of "the money is in the list". If you send out 10,000 emails (or direct mail pieces, etc.) to the general public, compared to 10,000 to people who wanted your products at this very moment, guess which one gives a better return?

Think of who has a relationship and is currently communicating with your target market (hopefully by email). then, approach them with the irrisistable offer to parter with you to push your products to their list.

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Tommy C

I send a few emails from time to time to interior designers, and other contractors in my area. I don't know these people prior to emailing them. Is what I'm doing illegal? It's been quite effective actually.

PressurePros

Hey Damion, good to see you are still around.

Booga, the catch-22 of this is that anything you send unsolicited is spam. Is spam effective.. well, we all wouldn't get 100 pieces of it every day if it wasn't. Is it the right way to do business? No way. So you need a voluntary-to-recieve mailing list. You do that via making an offer on your website (give something away) or by writing a newsletter that is informative and well written. Here is where the catch comes in.. you have to have the traffic to begin with. Where does that leave you?

You have to market your website via conventional methods (ie have a marketing budget). E-commerce follows the same rules as any other business. Start-ups have no customers. The same axiom of 'spend money to make money' applies. Your best bet is a Google Adwords campaign. Be very careful. Do you research or hire someone that is proficient at this. About 95%of contractors I see using this are doing it wrong. I fell into the same trap myself. You can spend thousands and get little return.

Is your new product website optimized for SEO with the right keywords? Is it on a reliable server? You have to begin building the strength of your URL with linkbacks. This can cost decent money if you want it to happen quick. Too quick and Google may look at you a little sideways. If you cannot afford to hire someone, plan on spending 20-30 hours a week seeking link backs to your site.

Once you get people to your page, you have about 2 seconds to convince them to stay and read more. My RAD page, as it is designed with the lousy WYSIWIG editors, has a horrid drop out rate. Fifty percent of the people open the page and say "this site sucks" and out they go in under 5 seconds. Hopefully the new design and copy I am having done will alleviate some of that.

Today's breed of shopper has evolved. Even if you do everything perfect with solid web design and marketing, many people will continue to research your product before they will buy. I follow my traffic closely. Many people will find my site via generic keywords, stay and read a good majority of my site, then I will get a Google hit 25 minutes later from the same IP. They went out and checked the reputation of the product (I assume). Welcome to the internet.

I took a solid year being an "answer man" on a DIY Forum before I opened an e-commerce site. At that point I had an audience and credibility so I started selling from jump street. Did a whopping $25K my first year.. woohoo.. house in Malibu here I come. Its grown steady and will start showing something towards what I would call a nice supplemental income in '08 but it has taken three years.

Getting involved in a forum that is relevant to your product is a good start. Resist the urge to want to start selling right away. If the forum allows, put your URL in your signature and be consistent. Go to that forum every day and contribute. Use your real name and keep in mind everything you write on that forum can make or break success.

Good Luck.. shoot me a pm if I can help you further.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA