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                 ** DEMC ** Volume IX No. 21 **
        The Truth About Legitimate Email Marketing!
          Serving the Internet Since November 1995

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What's In This Issue - Features

1) Editor's Note: "3 Important Email Marketing Update"
2) Marketing Insights: "Sure-fire Ways To Promote Your Off- Line Biz"
3) Feature Article: "A World of Networking"
4) SOHO Help Desk: "Moving Beyond Pay-Per-Click Search Engines"
5) DEMC's - Advertising Information

======================

1.

Editor's Note:

"3 Important Email Marketing Updates"

Today I have 3 important issues to review. The first two add additional information to the comments I made in the last issue. While the third point covers a new topic about which email marketers need to be aware.

1) Some official numbers have come out and if you didn't guess from your own email box, spam is on the rise. A recent study from MessageLabs shows that in May, 1 out of every 1.3 emails or 76% of email was spam. This report shows an increase from 67% of email being spam in April.

What's more the futility of the CAN-Spam law has become apparent. It seems no one but legitimate marketers comply with the regulations. The company MX Logic reported that only 3% of spam was in compliance with the law in April - and even that dropped to just 1% of spam messages in May.

The one silver bullet of CAN-Spam which was supposed to stem the tide of spam was a "Do Not Email List". However, the FTC announced on Tuesday of this week it's not feasible. The FTC said current technology has no ability to decipher the good mailers from the bad. Thus developing a list would be like waving a red flag in front of spammers. Spammers could take the list, spam away and the FTC would have no way of knowing the culprits or stopping them.

The FTCs only positive announcement, was that perhaps the private sector can slow spam through email authentication. Email authentication, I discussed in the last issue is a technology now being considered by most of the major ISPs.

The current email authentication likely to become a standard is SPF-Caller-ID, nick named "SenderID". What it does is require all email senders to publish records showing that they're authorized to send email from their addresses. ISP can then check to see that an incoming email is actually "From" a legitimate sender when it arrives.

The result of "SenderID" will be that emails with forged "From" address and header information will no longer be accepted.

For legitimate emailers, the implementation of "SenderID" by ISPs can not come soon enough. Fortunately, it looks as though ISPs will implement the technology in the near future. The FTC said it would have an industry summit on authentication this fall, possibly as early as September. And, if the private market fails to reach an authentication standard, the FTC felt it would have to convene an advisory committee as a preliminary step to implementing a federal solution.

With such a threat from the FTC, it's likely ISPs will move quickly to find their own solutions rather than be legislated into compliance with a technology they have little control over.

2) The second subject I felt should be raised again is the problem of virus spam. I read an alarming statistic from Sandvine, Inc. that 80% of spam is generated from infected home computers. These computers essentially have contracted a virus and they work as zombies sending out commercial spam for spammers, unknown to the computer's owner.

While, 80% may be high, Symantec said at least 30% of spam is from these zombie home computers. Still too high a number to ignore protecting your system.

Further, I was reading that a German magazine c't did an investigation and found that virus writers sell the IP addresses of PCs they've infected. Thus spammers can purchase access to infected home computer systems to unlawfully distribute commercial email messages, without the knowledge of their owners.

Yikes!

If my concern last issue about viruses spreading spam, did not prompt you to run the system check outlined in that issue's SOHO Help Desk column, don't delay. I've made the article available again by autoresponder this week for you if you'd like to review it. Just email: viruscheck@sendfree.com .

3) In the near future, if you haven't already, you're going to hear a lot more about Google's new web based email, Gmail. Gmail is still in beta, but it's being offered to certain Google advertisers and testers. By late summer it will likely be launched.

And from the information I've read Gmail is not good news for email marketers. Gmail reviews the content of the incoming email messages and then places contextual ads directly next to your email's body. Thus the recipient sees both your email message and the ads together as one informational piece. For instance, if you're promoting web hosting in your email message, the Gmail user will see AdSense ads (AdSense ads are Google's pay per click ads for content sites) for other web hosts right next to your message.

Imagine, you send your web hosting confirmation receipt to your new customer. The customer opens the message and right there is an ad for your competitor offering a special discounted deal. You could potentially lose the sale if your customer takes advantage of your guarantee and goes with your competitor.

Ahhh!

If this news is not disturbing enough, in addition to the contextual advertising, Gmail also places text links of related web pages next to your message. Based upon keywords in your messages, Google pulls up links to news stories - potentially distracting from your email and/or leading to a competitor's information as well. These features only come after you've successfully gotten your email delivered and opened. It seems Gmail has very stringent anti-spam filters and it blocks all HTML images from being displayed. You can forget tracking open rates and even tracking click throughs may be in jeopardy with Gmail.

You can learn more about the Gmail pitfalls from a Marketing Sherpa investigation.

You might ask, why would people use a Gmail account?

The free Gmail accounts come with 1GB of storage space. As you know most other free email accounts fill quickly if you fail to clear them out regularly. Gmail will solve this storage problem for many free email users. This could be a strong draw to attract new Gmail users.

Interestingly, though, in order to combat the upcoming Gmail, Yahoo! just this week released a new improved free Yahoo! mail with 100mb of storage. As email marketers we can only hope that individuals will stick or switch to Yahoo! rather than waiting to move to the marketing unfriendly Gmail.

Gmail is still in beta, so we'll have to wait and see what the final version reveals and how many users it attracts. In the meantime, however, if you are sending to Gmail addresses, be sure to deliver a text, spam filtered checked version of your messages.

Abbie Drew
DEMC Editor
mail@demc2.com


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2.

Marketing Insights:

* Exclusive *

"Sure-fire Ways To Promote Your Off-Line Biz"
By: Kevin Nunley

Roll back the calendar a couple of years and all my email was from people wanting to make their first million online. Today I mostly hear from folks who want to promote a small offline business.

From gift shops, to cleaning services, to payroll outsource operations, people are starting businesses that cater to residents and businesses who live in their own local area.

Here is what I tell people who want to know a dirt cheap way to promote an off-line biz.

1. Run an ad each week in your local newspaper. Just a small box ad or classified ad will do the trick. Try to run it on Sunday (by far the biggest day for newspaper readership) and keep it going for as many weeks as you can afford.

2. Sure, include your phone number in your ad, but also include your web site address. People everywhere are now very accustomed to searching the Internet for additional information about practically any business they see. Too bad for the Yellow Pages. The Net is now where a huge number of North Americans look first for who is doing what, phone numbers, and addresses.

3. Don't worry about having a killer looking web site. Most businesses just need a page that clearly gives answers to questions their customers ask most often. Get a free site from Tripod.com (geocities.com is also a freebie favorite) and snag A low-cost domain name you can have directed to your free site. Personally I use Bill at oriweb.com for this, but there are many other domain services that provide the same deal for under $15 per year.

4. Make absolutely SURE your web site home page starts with a paragraph that explains what you do and how you can help customers. When web site owners ask me why their site isn't selling, that is the problem nine times out of ten. People surfing the Net want to know FAST what you can do for them. If they can't figure you out or can't find the info, prospects will jump to somebody else's site and buy from them.

That's it! Super simple yet I see very few businesses using this rock-solid promotion technique.

Here are a few more simple, low-cost ways to make your small off-line business go:

* Have a human answer the phone. Most larger businesses use computerized answering systems that frustrate the heck out of their customers. Real people answering your phone create a huge advantage for you.

* Answer your email. A vast number of customers would rather send you an email than call or drop by your location. This is particularly true for younger customers. Yet I rarely find a small business that is responsive to email.

* Smile at customers. There are lots of large competitors who can't afford to pay their employees enough to smile.

* If you provide a service or order a product, tell customers when they can expect things to be completed. Then deliver when you say you are. That often comes up as the number one reason people buy from a small business again and again.

###
Kevin Nunley writes web copy, sales letters, press releases and ads. See all his writing deals at http://DrNunley.com. He also owns several off-line businesses. Reach Kevin at mailto:kevin@drnunley.com
or 603-249-9519.


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3.

Feature Article:

* Exclusive *

"A World of Networking"
By: Yvonne DiVita

Entrepreneurs are a unique brand of businesspeople. Successful entrepreneurs know that one great idea or a newly designed mousetrap are great starts, but they also know that one of the most important aspects of being in business for themselves is being connected.

We can start out marketing to our own neighborhood; see if our products and services will fly in our own backyards; but, eventually, we need to get out into the real world, and see what the folks out there think. We need to press some palms, greet some strangers, join a networking group and get noticed.

Networking has long been the millstone around entrepreneurs' necks, pulling them down, creating drag on their good intentions, and preventing them from moving forward. I asked some friends recently what networking meant to them, and each one heaved a big sigh before admitting that networking was a task, a chore, something they dreaded, but attempted to do on a regular basis, without much success. Why? Because they are all uncomfortable in crowds.

Networlding

Enter Melissa Giovagnoli and Jocelyn Carter-Miller; two women who will take the fear out of building a human network that will help you go places you never thought you could go. These two women put their heads together to write a book that's touted as, "The best friend a career could have." The book is Networlding: Building Relationships and Opportunities for Success (Jossey-Bass, Inc. San Francisco, CA 2000). The jacket back sums it up nicely:

"A career safety net for the new economy, Networlding show you how to build the mutually beneficial relationships that are the real keys to job satisfaction, career advancement, and personal fulfillment in the 21st century."

While the book is strong on career advancement, its 203 pages of advice are equally applicable to entrepreneurs. Personally, I think it's more useful for entrepreneurs. It's time to start thinking net-worlding, instead of net-working.

Influencers

Giovagnoli and Carter-Miller demonstrate how to build a networking circle that works with you, not against you. They say that, "your primary circle is made up of the people you interact with most frequently." Their advice is to limit this to 10 people. But, more importantly, fill it with "influencers."

"Influencers are people who have the ability to influence other people and their actions," they tell us on page 71. Influencers are doers, not observers. They have achieved their status based on accomplishments and contacts. While influencers often seem out of our realm, Giovagnoli and Carter-Miller advise us not to believe that because an influencer is part of an elite group, that he or she is unapproachable. The trick is to learn how to approach the influencer. Read Networlding to learn how.

Covisioning

Another thing Networlding teaches us is that the circle of networking we build should include people who have visions similar to our own. This involves "a willingness to blend one's vision with someone else's rather than insisting on a singular vision of how things should be done."

I look at this as improving our listening skills, and taking the time to actually hear what the other person is saying. In a recent sales workshop, I learned that people spend too much time second-guessing others. We don't actually 'hear' what other people say, we let our thoughts drift or only give half our attention to the conversation, then wonder why we're misunderstood when we offer our opinion or comments. It's because we have certain expectations from the person we're talking with, and unless we pause, open our minds, and listen carefully, we risk alienating someone who could be a good connection, a good friend, a good colleague.

It's covisioning, looking and listening outward, instead of inward.

Connection in Cyberspace

One of the best parts of this book is its recognition of the Internet as a great "pathway" to advancing your network. "The Internet is a more responsive communication medium than any other," they say. Shy people can be confident by being anonymous until they are ready to reveal who they are; women need not reveal their gender until they are comfortable and secure with the other person. Plus, it allows people to talk across boundaries-across the city, the nation, and the world.

But, best of all, the Internet is full of influencers-and many of them post their e-mail address on their Web sites and accept notes from just about anyone! I've personally widened my networking circle using this method. It works.

Networlding has so much valuable advice and stories it's impossible to list them in one short article. I advise you to buy the book at Amazon.com or your local bookstore and learn how to be a master networker using Networlding skills.

###
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4.

~/~ SOHO Help Desk ~\~
http://www.demc.com

"Moving Beyond Pay-Per-Click Search Engines"

Today's SOHO Help Desk shows real results on the best places to advertise online.

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

=== Real Advertising Results ===

"Moving Beyond Pay-Per-Click Search Engines"
By: Jonathan Mizel
http://www.CyberWave.com

A question we often receive from customers and subscribers is, "Where should I advertise my online business?"

Our first suggestion is to start with pay-per-click (PPC) search engines like Google, Overture, FindWhat, and others that sell traffic on a per-click basis. It's targeted, responsive, and best of all immediate. You only pay for actual visitors, and you can test any offer you like, from a viral or lead generating promotion, to a direct sales campaign.

Unfortunately, PPC search engines have become quite expensive, and while you can do a viability test for $100 - $200, eventually you will find yourself in a bidding war if your category is competitive. Plus, there are only so many clicks available based on the number of searches performed.

All of which brings me to a form of marketing you may not have heard of, known as "contextual" advertising.

Contextual ads have been around for a while, and in fact, if you advertise on Google AdWords and allow clicks from Content Partners, you are running such an ad. However, with Google and many others, you pay the same price per click no matter where the visitor comes from, and that can be very high (several dollars or more).

Not all contextual ads are the same. Some companies use AdWare, Spyware, toolbars, and other software to deliver unwanted, intrusive pop-ups. While the user is often targeted, they are also resentful of having their computer hijacked, making them far less likely to buy.

That's why I was excited to hear about an interesting new service called TargetBlaster.com that uses *organic* search engine traffic to generate visitors to topic-based pages in their network. The visitors then click on your specific ad. TargetBlaster.com calls this double targeting, once when they visit a themed site, and again when they click on your ad. I was skeptical, but for about the price of a PPC test, I figured I would give it a shot.

I have a client who recently released a business opportunity eBook for $29.95. I promised to help him test various traffic sources, and had performed both e-mail and PPC campaigns, so I had an idea that the promotion worked. I decided it would be my test case since I knew the sales process was strong and the offer converted.

When we promoted the eBook on Google, here's what happened:

Number of clicks: 1000
Cost per click: $0.32
Number of opt-ins: 366 (36.6%)
Number of sales: 14 (1.4%)

Total $ spent: $320
Total $ earned: $420
Total profit: $100
Total ROI: 131%

Now 131% ROI is nothing to sneeze at, especially when we have such a large opt in rate and can remarket to prospects again and again. No spam complaints, and consistent, quality traffic.

However, we actually do better with e-mail. We run large opt in campaigns with commercial e-zines each week, and on an average campaign, we can expect the following:

Number of clicks: 1000
Average cost per click: $0.38
Number of opt-ins: 559 (55.9%)
Number of sales: 26 (2.6%)

Total $ spent: $380
Total $ earned: $780
Total profit: $400
Total ROI: 205%

A 205% ROI is fantastic! It means I can spend a dollar, and turn it into two in less than a week running e-zine ads! Plus notice how high both my conversion and opt in rate is; much higher than the PPC traffic.

But as much as I love e-mail, I'm always looking for additional cost effective promotional techniques.

Which leads us into a discussion of contextual ads, and specifically TargetBlaster.com. As I said, I was skeptical, but figured I'd be able to track the clicks, opt-ins, and sales, and could determine fairly quickly if there was any monkey-business like junk traffic being sent my way. Luckily, I discovered within the first day what I needed to know. Here are my final stats...

Number of clicks: 1000
Cost per click: $0.10
Number of opt-ins: 612 (61.2%)
Number of sales: 24 (2.4%)

Total $ spent: $100
Total $ earned: $720
Total profit: $620
Total ROI: 720%

I made back more than seven times my original investment of $100! That's what I call a windfall, a promotion that produces a huge profit percentage wise. The reason for the success is TargetBlaster's organic search engine traffic methods, which generate visitors who are pre-targeted before they even see your ad. People who are interested visit, request information, and most important, they buy!

I didn't test TargetBlaster with other niches, though I believe the results would be the same. The double targeting really does make a difference.

The bottom line is: We spend as much as $50,000 a month on advertising, and in most cases, the best ads are the most expensive. However, using a service like TargetBlaster, it really is possible to make money with paid advertising on a small budget. Just make sure you track your results and you'll see results too!

###
Jonathan Mizel is currently the 8th most popular Internet marketing guru according to GuruDaq.com. He is also editor of the MarketingLetter.com, creator of the MarketingRollout.com formula, and author of the Internet's leading testing and tracking course at TestAndTrack.com. For more information, please go to: http://www.cyberwave.com/products.html

===

If you have a valuable tip, promotional idea, question or answer 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

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.

======================

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