By John Eberhard
I started doing email marketing in 1999.
In the late nineties I worked for a software company, and around 1999 we started doing email marketing. And we made millions for that company doing email marketing. We rented email lists from list rental companies. What this meant was that you would create the email and send it to them and they’d send it out to their lists. You never took possession of the list. The lists we rented were computer managers at large companies.
And we did really well with that. I was told by a rep from one of the list rental companies that our emails got better response than anything else he had ever seen. We were pretty innovative with it. We’d attach an MP3 file that would play when the person opened the email (usually with a woman’s voice). We made emails using Flash. We offered free gifts like a “free report” or a free software demo.
And we got plenty of responses and built up our email list like nobody’s business. And we had a programmer build us an autoresponder series, so when someone responded, they would receive a series of emails selling them the product which they bought online.
In the late 90s and early 2000s people started compiling huge email lists, like millions of names. And people started sending email to those list in large volume, notably selling toner cartridges and Viagra.
And you can guess what problem emerged: spam. With no regulation in place, marketers flooded inboxes with unsolicited messages. Early users were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of junk mail, and the word “spam” became synonymous with unwanted email.
This wave of spam led to the first calls for email regulation and gave rise to early spam filters. It also forced legitimate marketers to rethink how to reach audiences without annoying them.
In 1999, marketing author Seth Godin coined the term permission marketing—the idea that businesses should get consent before sending promotional messages. I always thought this concept was ridiculous, but it did change things. Instead of buying or scraping email lists, marketers began encouraging users to opt in by signing up for newsletters, or downloading guides or ebooks.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 in the United States formalized these practices into law. It required senders to identify themselves clearly, include a physical mailing address, and provide a way for recipients to unsubscribe. Similar laws would later appear in other countries. Canada, the UK and some other countries will assess huge fines to anyone sending bulk email without permission (geez!).
Then a number of companies started compiling and selling email lists of various types of businesses and professions. Like you could buy lists of dentists, veterinarians, contractors, etc. And this was where you took possession of the list, which meant you paid one time for the purchase and then could send emails as often as you wanted.
I bought quite a few email lists and marketed to them aggressively, both for my own business and for clients. And this worked great for a number of years. In fact I largely built my business this way in the early years. But I have observed in the last few years, say since 2018, the effectiveness of this method has dropped considerably.
Today I think the best way to do email marketing is to build what is called an “in-house” list, basically a list of clients and prospects, and to aggressively market to that list. The size of this list is very important, so it is vital to take actions to build it up. Here are some of the things you should do:
- Offer some free items on your website, such as ebooks on the topic of your products or services, free guides, cheat sheets, etc. Require that the person give you their name and email in order to get the item.
- Offer a free email newsletter subscription.
- Promote your free ebooks or guides using Facebook ads, Bing Ads, Google Display ads, or Google YouTube ads. Google Search ads are generally too expensive for this type of campaign. If you are a non-profit, you can get a Google Grant.
- Offer free webinars or in-person seminars on your topics, and require the name and email of attendees. You can promote these with any of the media above.
So where do you put these identities as you are collecting them? I recommend putting the names into a database with one of the Email Service Providers, such as Constant Contact, Aweber, or Mailchimp (or one of the newer competitors as all these are getting pretty expensive these days).
Then what do you do with them after you collect these identities?
- Set up an autoresponder series that sends out a series of emails after the person signs up; one right away (with a download link to the free item if that is what they signed up for). Then send subsequent emails usually 2-3 days apart, selling your various products or services, with testimonials, links to product pages, links to videos, etc.
- Send those new identities your email newsletter, and any other one-off emails you might send out, promoting products or services, specials, etc.
You have to find the right frequency for your company for sending emails. But I personally think you should send out emails to your in-house list at least twice a week. I have one client who sends out emails every day, including weekends, and that works well for him.
The benefit of course is that once you collect these identities, you can market aggressively to them. So building up a large list is a valuable action and that list is worth a lot.
If you’d like help with email marketing, contact Real Web Marketing at 661-441-2429 or fill out a form here.
