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** DEMC Volume VIII No. 23 **
The Truth About Email Marketing!
Serving the Internet Since November 1995
Quote for today:
"It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying,
that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few
comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to
have a fount to draw on from within." - B.C. Forbes
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What's In This Issue - Features
1) Editor's Note: "What sells online?"
2) Email Marketing Insights: "Writing For The Net -
To The Head Or To The Heart?"
3) Feature Article: "Who, What, When, and How?"
4) SOHO Help Desk: "How to Create and Send HTML Email"
5) DEMC's - Advertising Information
======================
1.
Editor's Note:
"What sells online?"
Recently I've been receiving calls and emails from
frustrated online business owners. These individuals have
wanted to know what to sell online, as their efforts have
not been productive.
As a result of these calls I thought today I would review
3 necessary steps to selling profitably online.
1) Focus, Focus, Focus!
One of the difficulties I see online business owners having
is a lack of focus. Their web sites, ezines and what they
sell are not focused on a single topic.
Let me explain what I mean with an example. Earlier this
week I was speaking with a DEMC subscriber, let's call
her Jane. Jane was telling me how she was having trouble
selling online. She said she had had some success selling a
PC diagnostic and security tool a while back but no longer.
So she wanted to know what was selling now so she could
promote it?
Jane told me she had an ezine and she was marketing the
PC product and a few other miscellaneous products to her
list but it wasn't working for her.
I asked Jane about the topic of her ezine and she said it
covered financial issues, as she had a lot of experience in
this area.
Are you seeing a potential problem here?
Jane has developed a list of individuals with an interest
in managing their finances. The PC security product she is
trying to sell, while it may benefit her subscribers, is not
a financial related product. It is a computer security
product.
Jane instead should focus on selling financially related
products and services. Her ezine readers know she is
knowledgeable in this area, as they've been reading her
advice. If she looks for and recommends products and
services that are financially related, it's likely her
readers will appreciate the advice and buy what she
promotes.
Before you can sell you have to focus. Stick to your focus
and become an expert. Then you'll be able to sell products
and services related to your focus.
2) Diversify, Diversify, Diversify!
Okay, I can hear you saying, "Abbie, you just told me to
focus and now you're telling me to diversify? @#%^&!"
Your business needs diversification of products and
services in your focused area.
For example, let's consider the DEMC business model.
DEMC's focus is email/ezine marketing. In addition to
selling ezine advertising, DEMC also sells email leads
through our CustomLead site ( http://www.customlead.com
)
and DEMC sells autoresponders and list hosting services
through our SendFree site ( http://www.sendfree.com ). Plus,
with my reduced schedule this summer, I'm working on
developing a couple of new email marketing related
products and services.
DEMC has diversification in what we sell our customers.
However, we've made sure that all of the products and
services we sell revolve around the focus of DEMC and
my area of expertise email/ezine publishing and marketing.
3) Residual, Residual, Residual!
The third critical element to online profitability is creating
residual ongoing income. An important element of business
success is to know that a repeat sale to a pre-existing customer
is easier and less expensive than to acquire a new customer
sale.
With this understanding, you should make sure that the
products and services you sell are needed on an ongoing
basis, not just once. Compare selling a book to selling web
hosting, which would you prefer to sell? The book is a one
time sale, while web hosting is ongoing. Every month you
pay your web host, it's repeat sale, after repeat sale,
after repeat sale for the web hosting company.
To further consider this point, I'd like to share with you
an email question I received this week from a subscriber,
let's call him John. John has a site for people who own
blazer vehicles. He wanted to know how to increase his
site's readership and make the site more profitable. He
thought perhaps selling T-shirts and hats might work?
While John has focused his site well and is working to
create a number of diversified products, he needs to
evaluate the residual nature of what he is going to sell.
T-shirts and hats could work, however, they are typically
one time purchases. I'd recommend John's site sell
products/services that are used over and over again. Just
off the top of my head, as I am not a blazer expert, I would
think a special oil for blazers might be better, or perhaps
blazer wax or blazer air filters.
To increase readership and profits, I would also
recommend John have an ezine and sell or give away
ecourses or ebooks on a variety of blazer subjects. A
blazer safety driving ecourse could be offered, with a
paid subscription of monthly updates. Or perhaps he could
create an ebook on offroad adventures of blazer drivers -
he could even get current site visitors to contribute -
and have ongoing additions for a small monthly fee.
The possibilities for what John can sell are limitless.
He just needs to brainstorm and research. A simple survey
asking his current visitors what they want along with
examining keyword searches in Overture will lead him to
some good solutions.
So in answer to the question, "What sells online?"
I respond, most anything. You, however, need to apply the
3 rules of profitability as outlined to find the best
products and services for your business to sell.
Abbie Drew
DEMC Editor
mailto:mail@demc2.com
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2.
Email Marketing Insights:
* Exclusive *
"Writing For The Net - To The Head Or To The Heart?"
By: Ganesan
Most of ad copywriting for print and TV media are
creative copywriting, where messages are meant to
reach out to the heart.
Most of Net writing, including newsletters and email
marketing stuff are of the factual kind. Messages that
try to reach the head. Exceptions are very few, and
sadly most of them are of the spam kind, or intrusive
mails in some form! (Could this be a reason why
spam succeeds and we get to receive more and more
of them?)
Why is most online marketing communication rational?
Are the target people who are meant to read them
different? With what level of authority, based on
actual experience, can we say that factual writing
works better than creative writing when it comes to
the Net?
If advertising has developed into a large and powerful
industry over the years, and discovered that emotional
appeal, crafted creatively, works far better, what
makes us believe otherwise in the case of Net based
marketing communication?
If the reason is the medium, do we have sound reasons
to believe that, in the case of Net and email based
communications, we respond better to rational
stimuli than to an emotional one?
Or are we merely reconciled to the limitations of the
medium, and are therefore trying to make the best of
a bad bargain (by coming to the point directly in
view of the supposed impatience of the customer while
in front of the computer)?
Or if the reason is the fact of different kind of cost
economics, and the un-affordability of most onliners
to hire professional help, are we saying we are
settling for a significantly poorer response?
Or if the reason is the difficulty in sending HTML
messages (if we believe visual is a very important
part of any good marketing communication), are we
to resign ourselves to second rate communication,
when it comes to the Net?
This is one of the least researched topics, as far I
have tried to fathom. For this reason, what I write
here is NOT the last word on this subject. (Not that
my writings otherwise are the last word either; just
that this article is even more open to debate.)
My own view is that, if we could write to the heart,
(including in newsletters and email marketing
messages), it will work as well on the Net space too,
the so-called customer's impatience notwithstanding!
Cost constraints notwithstanding! The limitations of
pure-text communication notwithstanding! Whatever
other limitations we may have notwithstanding!
In fact, except for the well established names, very
few brands worth mentioning have been built online,
despite reasonably heavy marketing and advertising.
I think consistent emotional communication can help
build strong brands, online too. Perhaps quicker!
All that is required is creativity, which appears to
be woefully lacking on the Net space!
In India, one of the biggest brands is 'Amul', an
organization that makes and sells, hold your breath,
just butter and cheese! And its brand has been built
only through a few outdoor hoardings, because they
couldn't afford costly ads in any of the other media.
They run a Cartoon based 'Hoarding Campaign' in all
major cities and towns, with a spoof on 'current
affairs', linking the Cartoon to their product.
There are hardly 6 to 8 words in the whole hoarding.
And they change their messages once a week.
For example, if it is a spoof on Saddam's
disappearance from Iraq, it could have the title
'Where's Saddam?' with a picture of Iraq, and no
sight of Saddam (or Saddam in hiding), with the
mascot of Amul searching for Saddam. The
baseline may read: Amul - A Runaway success!
Amul has been one of the biggest hits! I have never
missed any one of these messages, for years now!
No wonder the company has achieved a business
size disproportionate to its product category.
With the second wave of eBiz round the corner,
I think it is high time Marketing Communication
for the Net arrived! With a Bang! With strong
creative, emotional communication as a tool.
###
Ganesan is the CEO of eZynes, India ( www.ezynes.com
).
eZynes' comprehensive services in the area of e-zines
includes Content Development, Advertising & Marketing,
and managing client e-zines. Email:
ezynes@eth.net
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3.
Feature Article:
* Exclusive *
"Who, What, When, and How?"
By Yvonne DiVita
The Open Directory portal boasts "over 3.8 million sites -
57,238 editors - over 460,000 categories". Google claims it
covers 3,083,324,652 web pages with its search robots.
Yahoo! reports that "traffic on the Yahoo! global network
of properties increased to an average of 1.62 billion page
views per day as of December 2001."
Those are big numbers. They reflect the power of the
Internet but they don't reflect your ability to sell through
a permission based email campaign.
The trick is to think smaller, not bigger.
Who?
You need to get your message in front of your core
market. The problem is that few people actually know who
their core market is. If I'm repeating myself, please
forgive. But, I continue to see small business owners, and
marketing professionals, touting the all powerful target
market. They say if you're selling picture frames, your
target market is anyone with a computer and a connection
to the Internet.
Obviously, everyone who has a computer and logs online
is a person and persons take pictures. Since those pictures
need frames, the entire Internet is your target market! But,
trying to get in front of the millions and millions of people
who might buy your frames, is a useless task. Instead, sell
to your core market, that smaller group of hungry shoppers
actively seeking your products.
For picture frames, it could be Moms and Dads, right now.
It's graduation time. It's wedding time. Kodak moments
are happening all over the nation, probably all over the
world. Think global (you're on the Internet, yes you can
sell to England or China) but act local. Your local market;
city, state or nation, is more likely to chance buying from
you online. Once you have satisfied customers locally, then
you can branch out to a more global marketplace.
What?
Permission based email marketing is a great way to
identify that core market. Make sure your product or
service is exactly what your end user needs. In offline sales
we're taught to identify the customer's pain. Then, show
how your unique product or service is going to alleviate
that pain.
Where is the customer's pain when it comes to selling
picture frames? There may be several; let's say the end-
user is a Mom whose daughter or son just graduated from
high school. Grandma lives two states over and couldn't
make it to the graduation. She needs a picture. But, better
than that, she needs a framed picture. "Make Grandma
Happy. Reach out and touch her with a professionally
framed photo she will treasure for years to come."
Notice the alliteration of 'professionally framed photo.' It
slides off the tongue nicely and reads well, also. And it
identifies your solution to a problem you have identified in
your end user.
Your product is secondary to how the end user perceives
its value. Show them the value; don't make them search for
it.
When?
Spam is making it a challenge to prepare a successful email
campaign, but it isn't as hard as some nay-sayers would
have you think. It's rather equivalent to walking along a
small ledge on the outside of a 200-story building. One
false step, one wrong word, and you're done for!
I say you can cruise along that ledge easily, without being
a gymnast, if you've been paying attention to the qualified
advice given in this newsletter. Be aware of the words
spam filters block; be specific in your subject line; always
ask for double-opt in.
Then, begin to understand when your customer is most apt
to buy from you. The Online Publishers Association
( www.online-publishers.org ) notes in their recent study of
Internet activity that "there are five distinct dayparts"
corresponding to Internet usage.
1. Early morning (M-F 6am-8am)
2. Daytime (M-F 8am-5pm)
3. Evening (M-F 5pm-11pm)
4. Late night (M-F 11pm-6am)
5. Weekends (Sat-Sun, all day)
Their results of studying the Internet traffic during these
5 daypart times was to conclude that "affluent working
people between the ages of 25-54 make up a larger share of
the daytime audience than any other daypart."
Interestingly, they go on to note that, "On average,
ecommerce activity accounts for only 5.3% of time spent
online; a considerably larger share occurs on evenings and
weekends, than during the daytime."
This seems to say that your message will get in front of the
consumer during the day, while he or she is at work. But,
the consumer won't actually make the purchase until
evening or weekend hours. Keeping your marketing
message compelling and memorable will attract those
buyers that need to consider their purchasing decisions.
How?
A Channel Intelligence
(
http://www.channelintelligence.com/
) spring survey
reported by CyberAtlas, showed that 89% of the
respondents considered price as "extremely or very
important" with "return policy" following a close second
with 74% of respondents. In addition, 76% of respondents
qualified "ease of purchase" as "extremely or very
important."
None of this should be news to you. Use it to your
advantage by crafting excellent subject lines for your email
campaigns. If you are worried about being blocked by
spam filters check out this article on how to get around
them: http://eprofitnews.com/spam-filters.shtml
and get out there and start selling.
Now you know who to sell to; what they want most; when
they're apt to buy; and how to make sure your message
meets the right criteria, not only for the spam filters but
also for the buyer.
When you're done crafting this week's campaign, I suggest
you start thinking ho, ho, ho. It's not too soon to think red,
white and green.
###
Yvonne DiVita is the owner of Windsor Enterprises,
offering web content writing, editing and marketing.
She is an avid Internet guru specializing in cutting edge
technology, website development and promotion,
and Internet marketing.
Contact her at,
mailto:divita@windsorenterprises.com
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4.
~/~ SOHO Help Desk ~\~
http://www.demc.com
"Pros vs. Cons of HTML Email"
Today's SOHO Help Desk evaluates the benefits of HTML
email and discusses how to create HTML email messages.
If you have a valuable tip, promotional idea, question
or answers you would like included in an upcoming issue
of DEMC, all you have to do is submit it by email to -
mailto:helpdesk@demc2.com
Before we get to today's tip on HTML email, a DEMC reader
needs your input. Take a minute to see if you have any
advice you can share.
=== Help Request ===
From: Madhu Kumar
Hi,
I am selling an eBook through my website.
I have set up a 'Reseller Program' for that with Click
Bank, offering 50% commission to affiliates.
In what all ways I can get more Click Bank affiliates
to sell my eBook?
Madhu Kumar,
Your Future Prediction made easy by old Chinese Oracle I-Ching!
http://www.AccurateFuturePrediction.com/
Send your answer to: Mailto:helpdesk@demc2.com
===> Tip on HTML Email
From: Herman Drost
"How to Create and Send HTML Email"
Until recently text-based email was the most popular way to
communicate, however with the advent of html email you can now
create and send beautiful graphics, create clickable links and
use interactive forms.
HTML email can have the same appearance as a web page. You can
include your favorite photos, create colorful newsletters or
charts for your friends or business associates.
It's now often used as a valuable tool in email marketing
campaigns.
HTML email has now surpassed text-based email in popularity.
Read this survey on email format preferences and programs.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/email_format_preferences.htm
Let's first point out the pros and cons of sending html email
before we get into how to create it.
Pros of using html email
* Visually appealing
* Able to include graphics, icons, clickable links, different
fonts, interactive forms.
* Increased interactivity with your customers.
* Mostly used by advertisers, however more consumers are using
html email as they switch to faster connections.
* Ads can be more effective in HTML
* Most of the popular email clients now support html email
(ie Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Communicator,
Hotmail, Rocketmail, AOL, Yahoo, Web TV).
Cons of using html email
* Slow loading due to downloading of graphics
* Takes up more space in your email client
* Not all computers support html email
* Users may not have the required bandwidth or may have
download quotas set by their ISPs.
* Hackers can send viruses, trojan horses embedded in html email.
* Users may turn off the option to receive html email, or use
filters to quarantine it.
How to create a simple html email
1. Open your favorite html editor ie FrontPage, Dreamweaver
(you can also use MS Word 97 or 2000 but it tends to
bloat the code a little) to create your email.
2. Always use absolute URLS for your graphics
(ie
http://www.ihost-websites.com/images/header.gif ).
3. Graphics (ie images, icons, fancy fonts) must be stored on a
web server to correctly appear in email software - you could
save it as an attachment, however most folks will not open the
attachment especially (and delete it) if it's from someone they
don't know.
If you don't want to use graphics, you can use colored tables
for different sections (ie header, masthead, contact information
and footers).
4. Name and save the page you have created (ie html-email.htm).
5. Open your Email Software - in outlook express (since it's the
most popular) go to create mail - insert - text from file -
scroll to your saved html page.
You are now ready to send your html email.
6. Email a test to yourself before your send it to your
subscriber list. You may want to send it to your friends who
have different email programs so you can be sure most of your
subscribers can read it on their computers.
7. Once you have created an attractive html page or newsletter,
save it as a template. Now you can just open the template
whenever you want to send html mail and most of the work will be
done for you.
HTML email is still rather new, but it is a great marketing tool
if used properly. The key is to test, test , test to see if your
subscribers prefer it over text based email. If you are unsure
your subscribers can read html email, then offer both text-based
email and html email, to cater to both audiences.
###
Herman Drost is the author of the NEW ebook
"101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site"
http://www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion
Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original
articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com . You can read more
of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
===
Send in your feedback for an upcoming issue.
Email your questions, advice and/or thoughts to:
mailto:helpdesk@demc2.com
Be sure to include your SIG and contact URL with your
post as we'll be sharing any viable ideas/information
in an upcoming issue of DEMC E-Magazine.
======================
5.
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For information on advertising to the DEMC E-Magazine's
215,000 subscribers for as little as $36, plus details on How
To Get a FR^E Ad in DEMC E-Magazine Go To Visit Our Web Site:
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DEMC
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(203) 484-5183
(c) 2003 DEMC All rights reserved
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