But if anyone has gone through the trouble of collecting email addresses, and crafting a campaign of messages, then having an awareness of at least what it will take to get the message into inboxes of the recipients should be of interest.

The best way to accomplish bulk email delivery is by using one of the many online services that specialize in such. In fact, it should be emphasized that using a permission-based, Email Service Provider (ESP) is an important component of getting a bulk emails to arrive at the intended destination.

Additionally, ESPs often provide features such as:

♦ The ability to send both HTML and plain text formats. Plain text has the best opportunity for getting through to the intended recipients, but HTML allows the use of colors, embedded images and other formatting choices that make a better email presentation.

♦ Spam scoring, which allows the sender to edit a message before sending it, for the purpose of reducing factors that may result in a message getting blocked before it gets to the recipients.

♦ Automatic list maintenance, which includes stopping emails from being sent to recipients who request such, as well as functionality to allow new subscribers to add themselves via web forms.

♦ Email templates, which can make it easier to send emails that are designed to look more like web pages and/or to make the email messages more readily readable by recipients.

♦ Email analytics, which are statistical metrics pertaining to each email campaign sent, as a way of measuring readership engagement.

Of course, the main point of using an ESP is to get your message through to recipients. Although no service is perfect, there are better ones than others. I have used a number of free and paid ESPs over the years and if you are interested in ESP recommendations, click CONTACT and shoot me a message and I’ll let you know what my current favored choices are.

That even goes back to before the notion of “opt-in” email was broadly popularized by Seth Godin in his 1999 book, Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, And Friends Into Customers.

Over the years I have moderated the concept of “double opt-in” email confirmation and “single opt-in” email confirmation within organizations and among clients.  In recent years, I have tended towards a neutral position on the matter (after having been biased towards double opt-in).

Nowadays, after laying all the cards out on the table (advantages and disadvantages of each), and answering questions, I leave the decision up to the client.

♦ In brief, when a person enters their information (e.g. name and email) to complete the subscription process, that’s a single opt-in confirmation.

♦ If the person enters their information, and then needs to receive and open an email and click on a link within that email, to “confirm” their subscription, that’s a double opt-in.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Single or Double Opt-in

♦ Single opt-in’s generate larger lists and are simpler for the subscribers.

♦ Double opt-in’s generate higher quality lists, because it weeds out a percentage of emails that were inadvertently added. (Such as individuals entering email addresses other than their own). Also, because there are less spam complaints on double opt-in lists, the delivery rate can be higher than single opt-in lists.

Generally speaking, I prefer the confidence and quality of lists that double opt-ins generate. But I have seen lists for some clients that maintain favorable statistics (open rates, bounce rates, delivery, etc), even with single opt-in.  Does that mean single opt-in is the best idea for all clients?  I don’t think so.

There is more to know about the advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the equation.

Bill McCloskey, at ClickZ, has encapsulated both sides of the controversy with his post, Double Opt-in, Redux (although his personal preference is single opt-in).  Be sure to peruse the comments at the bottom of his post, as well.

Having a way to update customers and potential customers is a relatively simple and low-cost way to maintain and build a relationship with a percentage of visitors who would have otherwise stopped by and then left your website, likely to never return.

The majority of visitors to your website have arrived to find something, usually via a search engine.  If they don’t see what they want right away, they’ll leave within seconds.

However, even if they do see something of interest, they are not likely to stay very long.

Unless your visitors see a perfect match for what they are searching for, they are going to be on their way.

However, some percentage of those visitors are potential customers at a later time, even if they did not become so immediately.

How Many Visitors Are You Capturing Every Day?

Without capturing identities and then automatically emailing them ongoing information (traditionally in the form of some type of electronic newsletter), potential future sales are being left on the table every day.

Not having a way to maintain communications with interested visitors is just wasting a potential asset that your website and business could have.

If anything, email marketing is so common place, and has been around for so long (relative to other Internet communication media), that it is easily given short shrift. Which can be too bad for a company that has not reviewed and updated their email program for many years, or for a company that has never event started one.

Establishing and maintaining some form of an email marketing program is so rudimentary, that it’s point #4 of the Outline For an Online Business.

Email Marketing Resources

Here are some resources regarding the basics of email marketing:

How to be Hated via Email In One Easy Lesson

What Are YOU Giving Away For FREE?

Writing Email Subject Lines

Simple Flow Chart for an Email Marketing Joint Venture Campaign

Should You Offer a Paid Online Newsletter?

Jeanne Jennings atClickZ, posted Quick Tips for Successful E-mail Newsletters

The 7 Orbits of Internet Marketing

I would be remiss if I failed to also mention my own free newsletter. Click here for Skyworks Orbit and learn The 7 Orbits of Internet Marketing.

My reply was to note that this model was more popular ten years ago, although it is certainly still in existence today. However, as the earlier success of online (email) newsletters grew popular, the concept of offering them for free, as a low-cost marketing media, also garnered success. So much so, that in this day and age, free newsletters of some sort are so ubiquitous that they REALLY need to be compelling to stand out.

Regardless, that does not suggest that “you” should not consider offering one yourself. Or stated more specifically, you should offer something free in exchange for the email addresses of visitors, so that you can build a relationship with them and keep them connected to you, which will make them more amenable to paying money to you. (Read What Are YOU Giving Away For FREE? for more info).

Offering A Paid Newsletter

But I diverge. The subject here is offering a “paid” newsletter!

In simple terms, if you were to offer a newsletter that results in 1000 subscribers who pay $100 dollars per year, then you would establish a $100,000.00 annual revenue stream. Of course, if you were to double that number of subscribers, your revenue would double, and your workload would not.

But what would it take to generate 1000 paying subscribers?

Well, one thing is for sure, you’ll need to reach out to exponentially more than 1000 potential subscribers to hope for that kind of paid newsletter base. And that will take some amount of marketing and/or publicity, which also will take some amount of time.

In this day and age, with so much that is readily available for free on the Internet, the idea of paying for online subscriptions is a more difficult revenue model to master.

The point is that although a newsletter-only model would offer revenue, what it would take to make it really viable precludes it from being a basket to put all one’s eggs in.

Direct Response Monetization Model

Now, I’m not suggesting that a paid newsletter be ruled out. In fact, what I suggested for this client is a more traditional online direct response monetization model that would include a paid newsletter.

1) Attract readers and subscribers with free content (consider it advertising). Driving traffic to the free content could entail the use of a blog, social media, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, using online lead generation services, online press release distribution, joint ventures, affiliate marketing and more.

2) Offer some product/service for sale, ideally including a relatively low-price information product that is high quality and fulfills a need. This may be a special research report, review, analysis, or “how to” manual that is less than $50. The idea is to make the barrier to a customer’s first purchase from your business low enough that it does not require too much of a commitment from a wary public. (You could even make the product less than $20 or $30).  This is where a paid newsletter could fit, and/or at any (or each) of the following steps.

3) Offer a higher priced information product that is also high quality and fulfills a need. This might entail the creation and development of a more involved training or educational multi-media product, which would include a manual, a workbook, DVDs and/or CD’s with audio and/or video educational materials and perhaps additional references. This could be a few hundred dollars, or more, depending upon the uniqueness, need, perceived value and competitiveness of the market.

4) Offer higher priced products and or “services.” At this point, the term “services” is introduced as it could include access to your expertise. By that, it could mean access to you via teleseminars, webinars (like telesminars, except it includes online interaction,) live seminars at a hotel and/or personal one-on-one phone consultations. At this point the fees could be substantially higher, including several thousand dollars for a specific period of time (a weekend; training once a week over a month; or 6 weeks; 10 weeks; etc). Alternatively, the fee could be paid monthly, on the order of many hundreds of dollars (or higher) and the subscribers would continue to pay as long as they derive the expected value and/or achieve the results they are after.

Although this latter part may seem to be the fundamental economic engine for your enterprise, and worthy of the total focus of all your activities, each preceding lower-cost offering is an important step towards your most valuable products and services. Additionally, your largest revenue generation service would not require expensive outbound marketing, as it would enjoy inbound interest which is a result of all the marketing efforts directed towards the lower cost products.

Stated succinctly, the idea here is to continue to expand a circle of influence while inspiring those interested in your services to self-select themselves into a sales funnel that results in an ever expanding opportunity for higher cost, higher quality information, products and services, which could ultimately include a level of personal access.

Obviously, one would need to maintain high quality standards throughout the process, as the concept of a percentage of your buyers seeking greater and greater value, necessitates that their needs and expectations are met at each of the lower cost levels.

Internet Backlash

One more point is worth noting. The Internet is a fantastic media for getting your message out, and it’s just as easy for anyone else to do the same – and many do. But this includes a great variety of messages, good and bad. Really, ANYONE can say anything they want. And people do.

More to the point, along the way a small percentage of individuals are going to express disagreements, protests, mud slinging, etc., regardless of how well researched and accurately presented your products and services are.

Some of this backlash can be a source of valuable information for improvement and refinement. Some of it will just need to be ignored. As long as you are truly offering something of value, just consider that such backlash is garnering attention for your products and services and is additional promotion for your cause.

Conclusion

The net result of this client meeting was my suggestion that offering a paid newsletter service should be considered and included as part of a broader marketing and monetization strategy which would offer even more value to subscribers, as well as more profit for the company.

In short, three email messages will be sent to the subscribers of Joint Venture Partner (A) over the course of 2 weeks. The emails will offer a free video and a series of three downloads in exchange for their names and emails.

Some percentage of interested subscribers from the email database of Joint Venture Partner (A) will be directed to the landing page of my client (Joint Venture Partner B) to view a video that will further inspire and encourage the visitors to subscribe to the offer.

Although the primary intent of the video message is to increase the percentage of subscribers via this video Landing Page, a secondary purpose is to develop a relationship with the visitors that positions the subject of the video as a thought leader in his niche industry.

Once the subscribers have entered their names and emails (and optional phone number), they will be directed to a “Success” page which features a one-question poll to gather additional info from the subscribers, which will be used for the marketing of follow-up products/services.

These new subscribers will instantly receive the first PDF download, via email, and will receive PDF downloads #2 and #3 over the following 10 days, also via email, which will familiarize the subscribers to the ongoing email newsletter which will continue on into the future offering valuable information, as well as offers for products and services, all specifically relevant to the same niche subject.

Joint Venture Partner (A) will also share in the profits generated by this campaign that I have developed for this client.

Once this campaign has run its course, a new one will be initiated with a different joint venture partner. Furthermore, additional subscriber generating strategies will be developed, tested and refined, as part of an ongoing process of increasing leads and sales.

UPDATE: Here’s another email flow chart:
http://skyworksmarketing.com/email-lead-generation/

At times when you may already be frustrated from having too much to accomplish with too little time, spam can provoke anger when you’ve discovered that you inadvertently deleted an important message among all the spam you were dumping.

And too much of that can lead to hatred.

Which is why you rarely see a notable or respectable brand promoted through spam.

Responsible marketers do not spam. We establish email lists through permission-based marketing efforts that also allow subscribers to unsubscribe at their convenience.

OK, that sets up the good guys and the bad guys wearing white hats and black hats in the world of email marketing. But are there any gray hats?

Well, when you entertain the notion of renting or purchasing email lists instead of building your own, it’s difficult to be exactly sure what you are getting for your money.

Since the company that is providing the list is in the business of obtaining as many names as possible, while renting or selling them to as many businesses as possible, their interests are not in harmony with yours: Ensuring that your message gets to individuals who want it, and converting them to customers. (And for many marketers, doing so without damaging their brand’s reputation).

Should your list provider relax their standards for email acquisition, they could be setting you up as a spammer, without you realizing it.

For more insight on the subject, check out these ClickZ articles on purchasing and renting email lists:

♦ E-Mail List Purchase: A Shortcut to Success?

♦ E-mail List Rentals: Red Flags and Results

This is not to suggest that renting or buying a professional, targeted, opt-in email list cannot be done, but it’s your business reputation that is at risk (and such a list would not likely be an inexpensive one).

Just keep in mind how much you and I hate spam….