A Guide To Automated Email Marketing

A Guide To Automated Email Marketing

by Michael Southon



You've probably heard the expression, 'the money is

in the list'. It's become a bit of a cliché - but it's

the key to successful web marketing.



About 95% of visitors will not buy on their first

visit to your website - in fact, most of your

customers will have to see your message 7 times before

they buy.



Many people starting out on the Internet believe that

their main marketing tool is their website.



In fact, your main marketing tool is your mailing

list. A website is just a way of building your mailing

list - by collecting the email addresses of your

visitors.



Here are some examples of how to use mailing lists as

part of your marketing strategy. You could send:





=> a customized newsletter to your subscribers



=> sequential autoresponders to prospects



=> your Articles to Ezine publishers



=> offers for other products to your customers





However, managing your mailing lists can quickly

become an organizational nightmare if you don't have

an Automated Email Marketing Tool.



An AEMT is a program that merges personal data into a

form letter, schedules follow-up emails, and handles

subscribes and unsubscribes automatically.





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Server Side or Client Side?

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The first thing you'll need to decide is whether to

use a Server Side or Client Side program.



A Server Side program is a script that sits on your

server, whereas a Client Side program is an

application that sits on your PC.



In general, Client Side programs are capable of much

more advanced email management than Server Side

programs.



But Server Side programs do have some advantages:



=> With a Server Side program, people who join your

Newsletter receive an instant 'Welcome Message'



=> Server Side programs include an unsubscribe link

at the bottom of your Newsletter. The reader

just clicks on that link and the cgi program

removes them from your mailing list.



=> With Server Side programs, you don't need to be

connected to the Internet while your Newsletter

is being mailed out. You just click a button on

a web page and you can then go offline - the

mailing is being performed by your server.



Here are some tools for automating your email

marketing:





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Subscribe Me Pro (Server Side)

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This is a popular program amongst Newsletter

publishers - it mails out your Newsletter and provides

automatic subscribe/unsubscribe functions.



Subscribe Me Pro gives automatic mail-back

confirmation when people subscribe or unsubscribe and

you can include automatic Add or Remove links in each

e-mail, so users can add or remove themselves.



http://www.freezineweb.com/cgi-bin/subpro.cgi





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Auto Response Plus (Server Side)

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This program gives you unlimited follow-up

autoresponders. It allows full personalization of

subject lines, headers, footers, ads - every part of

every follow-up message can be personalized.



Auto Response Plus gives you full control over the

scheduling of your follow up messages - you can set an

interval between messages or schedule them to be sent

on certain days of the week.



Although this program is designed primarily for

sequential autoresponders, it's also quite capable of

mailing out your Newsletter and managing

subscribes/unsubscribes.



http://www.freezineweb.com/autoplus.html





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Mailloop (Client Side)

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This application includes a newsletter server, web

form processor, bulk emailer, customer database

management, and autoresponders.



As with other Client Side programs, Mailloop allows

you to merge an unlimited number of fields into your

e-mail message (for example: first name, last name,

e-mail address, product purchased, date of purchase,

etc).



http://www.freezineweb.com/mloop.html





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World Merge (Client Side)

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This is another application that allows you to merge

personalized data into form letters.



Depending on your modem and the quality of your ISP

connection, this program will send approximately 8,000

messages per hour.



WorldMerge is excellent value - it's about a quarter

the price of similar programs.



http://www.freezineweb.com/worldmerge.html





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Postmaster (Client Side)

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Like other Automated Email Marketing Tools, this

program allows you to create a form letter and merge

personalized data into each letter. Your letters are

addressed to 'Dear Michael' instead of 'Dear

Customer'.



Postmaster acts as a List Server, sends out follow-up

Autoresponders, and manages your database of contacts.



http://www.freezineweb.com/postmaster.html



To sum up, in a successful web marketing strategy,

your website is merely the first point of contact. You

then need to:



(1) build an opt-in email list of potential

customers (your website visitors)



(2) use automated email marketing tools that allow

you to follow up with your site visitors.



If you aren't building mailing lists and using

automated email marketing tools you could be losing up

to 90% of your potential sales.