What Separates the Winners From the Losers
| Category: Marketing Strategy | Date: 2001-02-21 |
If you have an affiliate program, you know how important email is. Recent studies, and my own experience, have shown the dramatic impact effective, email marketing can achieve.
A new term is popping up, called "Permission Marketing." It simply means you have to gain permission from people to send email to them. Most often, this is achieved with a free, no sale initial offer. More importantly, permission marketing is based on the principles of direct response marketing:
People rarely buy on impulse. For example, how many times have you bought the first time you heard about something? Therefore, you need to get familiar, develop trust and be able to remember who you are buying from.
People most often buy on 3rd or 4th contact. It is simply human nature: You have to follow up to make sales.
How does this impact affiliate marketing? First, remember that most affiliate programs are run by banners, depend heavily on impulse marketing and do little -- if anything -- to invite consumers to give you permission to market to them. A simple gift certificate, discount or free information is enough, but most affiliate networks assume that customers are so motivated and so energetic that they will return on their own.
As such, they spend all their time chasing new customers, which actually decreases sales, for you and your affiliates. The fact is, however, that you have to remind people of who you are -- and do so quickly. Most businesses ignore this fact religiously.
They should have staff dedicated to monitoring email, conducting follow ups and improving ad copy.
I've seen most companies literally ignore all email inquiries. (To this day, it amazes me -- you would answer your phone but you won't answer email!) For example, I've seen multi-million dollar companies actually hire 17 year olds (uneducated about the business) to run their email! The results are frightening.
Email, done correctly, and with an in-depth knowledge of the principles of direct response marketing, is professional and targeted. Now think hard for a second: How many 17 year olds would you trust with such an important position? Companies have found their entire lists "CC'd" to customers (i.e., every name on the list was given away to possible competitors), and spam has been introduced because the message is so poorly written, not targeted, and simply a waste of time.
It is amazing when people think that anyone can write and deliver email. Permission email marketing is as important a skill as that of a webmaster, a programmer and a customer service representative. Yet it is continually ignored because companies don't fully understand that the relationship you build with your customers is primarily done via email.
Meanwhile, the companies who treat this like an important part of their business are reaping the rewards -- Xoom.com is an excellent example of a company that built their reputation on their multi-million subscriber list. eMarketer.com recently released a study of email (commissioned by Fortune Magazine) in 1999 that is quite stunning:
In 1999, 3.4 trillion emails were delivered in the U.S.
9.4 billion messages are exchanged in America every day
81 million Americans use email
26.4 emails are sent/received daily by the average American
People receive twice as many emails as they send, on average
2.1 billion emails are sent each day by American Internet users -- and, in addition, another 7.3 billion commercial email messages are sent every day.
The study notes that 107 billion pieces of first class postal mail were sent in the U.S. in 1999, as a comparison. (This is just the U.S. here, not the whole market!)
As you can see, if you are not emailing you are not in business. Case closed. From Xoom.com to small businesses following up via autoresponders, the figures are staggering.
Unfortunately when you talk about email marketing, many assume you mean spam. So they don't do it. This is your advantage, because the short-sighted nature of many online businesses is literally paving the way for domination by a few companies who build their lists through targeted, effective email.
About the author:
dunn@activemarketplace.com
http://www.activemarketplace.com
A new term is popping up, called "Permission Marketing." It simply means you have to gain permission from people to send email to them. Most often, this is achieved with a free, no sale initial offer. More importantly, permission marketing is based on the principles of direct response marketing:
People rarely buy on impulse. For example, how many times have you bought the first time you heard about something? Therefore, you need to get familiar, develop trust and be able to remember who you are buying from.
People most often buy on 3rd or 4th contact. It is simply human nature: You have to follow up to make sales.
How does this impact affiliate marketing? First, remember that most affiliate programs are run by banners, depend heavily on impulse marketing and do little -- if anything -- to invite consumers to give you permission to market to them. A simple gift certificate, discount or free information is enough, but most affiliate networks assume that customers are so motivated and so energetic that they will return on their own.
As such, they spend all their time chasing new customers, which actually decreases sales, for you and your affiliates. The fact is, however, that you have to remind people of who you are -- and do so quickly. Most businesses ignore this fact religiously.
They should have staff dedicated to monitoring email, conducting follow ups and improving ad copy.
I've seen most companies literally ignore all email inquiries. (To this day, it amazes me -- you would answer your phone but you won't answer email!) For example, I've seen multi-million dollar companies actually hire 17 year olds (uneducated about the business) to run their email! The results are frightening.
Email, done correctly, and with an in-depth knowledge of the principles of direct response marketing, is professional and targeted. Now think hard for a second: How many 17 year olds would you trust with such an important position? Companies have found their entire lists "CC'd" to customers (i.e., every name on the list was given away to possible competitors), and spam has been introduced because the message is so poorly written, not targeted, and simply a waste of time.
It is amazing when people think that anyone can write and deliver email. Permission email marketing is as important a skill as that of a webmaster, a programmer and a customer service representative. Yet it is continually ignored because companies don't fully understand that the relationship you build with your customers is primarily done via email.
Meanwhile, the companies who treat this like an important part of their business are reaping the rewards -- Xoom.com is an excellent example of a company that built their reputation on their multi-million subscriber list. eMarketer.com recently released a study of email (commissioned by Fortune Magazine) in 1999 that is quite stunning:
In 1999, 3.4 trillion emails were delivered in the U.S.
9.4 billion messages are exchanged in America every day
81 million Americans use email
26.4 emails are sent/received daily by the average American
People receive twice as many emails as they send, on average
2.1 billion emails are sent each day by American Internet users -- and, in addition, another 7.3 billion commercial email messages are sent every day.
The study notes that 107 billion pieces of first class postal mail were sent in the U.S. in 1999, as a comparison. (This is just the U.S. here, not the whole market!)
As you can see, if you are not emailing you are not in business. Case closed. From Xoom.com to small businesses following up via autoresponders, the figures are staggering.
Unfortunately when you talk about email marketing, many assume you mean spam. So they don't do it. This is your advantage, because the short-sighted nature of many online businesses is literally paving the way for domination by a few companies who build their lists through targeted, effective email.
About the author:
dunn@activemarketplace.com
http://www.activemarketplace.com
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