How to sort email addresses?

EMail Responses

• I want to sell an E-Book on Betting @c$12 in a slightly new and unknown area (Not tips or systems to make mi$$ions). Content is pretty solid and there are relatively few publications on the topisc. The marketing approach will be to Email opt in addresses of people with a betting interest provided by a list broker (@c $180 per '000) and to provide useful working spreadsheets as a give away and more or less as an entitlement for the asking as soon as the post is opened. (The spreadsheets will work in their own right but the reader will have to do some work to get full functionality which, of course, is readily available as explanation in the E-Book.) In other words, I believe it is a value package that I have sold with positive comment on EBay for $25. However, at only a couple per ad, it is too slow to make any sort of return on. The Email subject header is planned to be something like "The full Kit: Tools, Tactics and Knowhow" and will carry a sales pitch (but no price/ordering) directing the reader to a website which will carry full details of the product and its content and allow for selling. There will be a follow up Email with fresh copy of the spreadsheets after 3-weeks and encouraging a visit to the website. The initial focus market will largely be in UK but international experience will be probably valid. This is my first E-Book venture and my first stab at E-mail marketing. My (known! there are probably hundreds of others) issues are to have comment on the strategy and some sort of feel for the likely stats (realising that much can depend on the Email and site presentation\): x000 addresses posted; y%? take up of the "free offer" and z%? purchased. I reckon I have to sell to over 1.5% of the mailed group to break-even and part of me says "C'mon, 2 guys out of a 100? It's got to work!" But will it? Over to you...........

• Answer:

  Hi, Your problem of course is based on the quality of the list you are using. You describe an 'opt-in' list of people who are 1) interested and 2) can legally purchase your product. If these are true a 10-20% return is not unheard of, and I've personally seen much better from well planned email campaigns. If your list is just a bunch of harvested names, then with such a specific interest (betting) I doubt you will see the normal return from such a small list (I'm reading your number as 1000 up there in the question). The audience size is the currency of advertising media. One thing you might consider for your own benefit and future decision making knowledge is using track back codes on the website that you are sending the prospective buyers to, from the email, for purchase. A link can contain an ad tracking code, an affiliate code, or a number that identifies your customer record in the e-mail sender's database. These often use a number or code that follows a question mark in the URL, such as: http://www.domain.com/link.htm?id=1255791 By using these (and the web program behind them) you will gain information as to: response time, and amount of click responses to your page, as compared to the number of people who purchased your product. There are a number of reasons for prospective clients not to buy, as you pointed out the email and website can have a great deal to do with this. If the website is never seen however, then you can narrow your field down to the email and or the prospective client receiving the email. The PHP program to make use of these is very simple. By using HTML type email you can use code and/or image calls back to your web server to record if the email was ever opened. This is very useful information as well, as you can then see if your email is structured in a way that spam filters are deleting them before they are read. Having this happen will of course limit your return percentage, and give a false reading on the effectiveness of your message or the list itself. As stated before, audience size is the currency of advertising media. Many companies approach first run direct marketing with little planning and very little tracking systems in place. They just send out the list and wait for the outcome to decide if the idea was worth it or not. This is much like doing no research or statistic reading, placing my bets on 5 football games and waiting for the outcome to tell me if betting on sports was a sensible effort. It would be a good idea to ask for, and check references on the company you are getting your list from. It really shocks me how many people don't do this for list companies. Without a good list the effort is in vain. Let's do numbers : http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/article.php/3452851 "Average open rates for house lists are running in the mid-30s (34.3 percent, according to DoubleClick). The range I'm seeing, based on public sources and my clients' performances, is the mid-20s to just over 50 percent. Average click-throughs for house lists (calculated as a percentage of messages delivered, not the percentage opened) are running in the high single digits (DoubleClick reports 8.2 percent); the range I'm seeing is just over 1 percent to just under 20 percent." There are several great articles on email marketing at this location http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/archives.php Reference Links University of Washington Marketing Resources http://www.lib.washington.edu/business/guides/market.html ClickZ Experts on Email Marketing Strateges http://www.clickz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/ thanks, webadept-ga