The Good and Bad in Bulk Email

Many companies have given up trying to find out what types of website submissions are being accepted and rejected by the major search engines, and they are searching for alternative ways to promote their wares on the web. Some have turned to banner ads, which are costly and, for the most part, ignored by potential customers. It is also almost impossible to reach a "targeted" audience with banner ads. Others, however, are turning to bulk email marketing as a means of advertising their products and services, and are having tremendous success with it.

Bulk email marketing has become a big business. Before the internet evolved, businesses relied on the old adage, "Location, location, location." In today's world of e-commerce the new philosophy has become, "Marketing, marketing, marketing." Every day new websites are being created, and their owners are realizing that to compete in this new arena they have to look seriously at the concept of email marketing.

Bulk email is not necessarily SPAM. SPAM is untargeted bulk email, or any untargeted advertising that is sent to a large audience, many of which have no previous relationship with the sender. Bulk email can be used to contact an existing customer database, completely with their permission. Many times though, the ISP will not allow even this type of emailing. Many seem to feel that even though the user is paying for the service, the ISP can dictate exactly how the connection is used.

In order to bulk email properly, you need to get a list of addresses of people who will allow you to email them. This is called opt-in email. A customer list that is obtained when folks enter their information as they download some software is a good example. This is easily captured by a web form and installed into a database. It can be as complete as you would like, however, you should keep in mind that the more information you require to be entered, the fewer people will bother.

Once you get an opt-it list, you will need to provide real content to your readers, along with any ads you may have. In fact, the emails should be very heavy on the content side.

One option is to link a web page to the email. This allows you to put additional content on your web site for your readers, and the search engines. You can also get a lot more information on a web page that is easily read, than in an email reader.

Our favorite opt-in email company is AWeber. Their cost is quite inexpensive, only $19.95 per month. They are able to have very high reliability, in fact, they can deliver 99.34% of your emails. They have templates and sales letters available, The number of emails is unlimited, and they have excellent customer support.