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Profiting from E-Mail
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Q.
What are
the basic principles in beginning an E-Mail business on the Web?
What are the major expenses and what is the major generator of
income?--Maxie
Advice by Nach M Maravilla -
Publisher, PowerHomebiz.com
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A.
I must confess that I do not really understand what
information you need. Email on the web is primarily used as a
tool to market a product or service, and to communicate with
others.
For email to become a business, there are several business
models that are currently in existence:
1. Selling email addresses. - A business collects email
addresses from people who have agreed to receive third-party
mailings. They then sell these email addresses, often
categorized by interests and demographics, to marketers who wish
to send their message s
across a wide number of recipients without
stamps. To collect email addresses, you need to have a site
where people can go to.
And at the site, you offer original
content to entice them to submit their emails for your own
offers, and offers of third parties.
There are a number of ethical considerations in this
business. There are a lot of "list brokers," as they
are called, that sells email
addresses of people who never even agreed to
receive messages from them. The marketers who buy their lists
are made to
think that the people in the list are
willing to receive their messages.
However, it usually results
to receiving a lot of hate mails and accusations of spam. Worse,
the buyer or user of the list can be banned by their Internet
ISP and their web site, if they
have any, removed, by the web host for
violations of what is called "Acceptable Use Policy."
These unscrupulous list brokers often target newbie marketers in
the Internet.
They use an email harvester program that runs across web
sites and collect emails that are listed on the site (in our
case, our most spammed emails include advertising@powerhomebiz.com,
webmaster@powerhomebiz.com as these email addresses are listed
on our site). Therefore, the emails included in their list are
simply random emails that they take without permission. That is
very bad netiquette.
2. Develop a software that will make the e-mailing process
more efficient. Example of this kind of software is a harvesting
program, which is a primary tool for the scumbags on the
Internet.
You can also create a program that will allow web site owners
and marketers to easily send bulk emails. Many webmasters,
particularly those who publish a regular newsletter, need
emailing software to help them send their newsletter to
thousands of subscribers at a much shorter period of time
relative to sending each email one by one. An example of this is
Mail Loop, and Microsoft's Listbot. This software although
efficient, cannot be used with ISPs who do not allow mass
mailing from a personal account. Most ISPs will allow the use of
mass mailings only if you change your account into a business
account, which is more expensive.
3. Newsletter Advertising. Many e-zine publishers and
webmasters earn their keep on the Internet through advertising.
They produce a newsletter, increase their subscriber base and
then offer spaces in the newsletter to advertisers. Sometimes,
they send a solo mailing that focuses solely on the advertiser's
message. For this to work, you need to establish a good number
of readership in a market desirable to advertisers (e.g. an
ezine on Internet business, finance, career, small business
always attract advertisers). You also need to have compelling
and original content to make your subscribers continue to want
to receive your newsletter.
Advertising rates can depend on the quality of your
subscribers (what are the demographics?), the size of your
subscriber base (if you have less than 5,000 you cannot expect
to charge a high rate), and the position of the ad in your
newsletter. Note that it will take a lot of time to establish a
decent size list (don't ever believe the hype that you can get
1,000 subscribers in one month!). From what we have seen thus
far, you can only have 50 subscribers a day if your site is
generating page
views of 40,000-75,000 per day. This
are page views,
not Hits.
As Internet continues to grow, so do the scams and frauds
that proliferate on the Net. Take for example the emails that
have been going around that Microsoft or Disney or some other
companies will pay you if you forward the email to 10 of your
friends. Those are simply not true and are called urban legends.
Yet, many people believe and are being victimized. Whatever
business you start, always investigate before hand and avoid
those that require upfront fees.
I hope that the above information will help.
FeedBack from Maxie:
Thank you so very much for the information. As I read and
become more familiar with the market, I will likely have
additional questions to ask. I was delighted to receive your
response and appreciate the time you devoted to answering my
questions. Sincerely,
Maxie
About
the PowerHomeBiz.com Guide:
 Nach Maravilla is
the Publisher of Power Homebiz Guides. He has over thirty years
experience in sales and marketing of various products, which
covered as he jokingly describes, "from toothpicks to
airplanes" He also had extensive experience in
International trading and he always excelled in special promotional
ideas for retail outlets.
The opinions expressed in this column are
those of the author, not of PowerHomeBiz.com.
Users
should not treat the Guide's response as legal, accounting, or
professional advice as all answers are intended to be general in
nature. Such advice can only be properly given by qualified
professionals who are fully aware of a user's specific geographical areas or circumstances, such
as
an attorney or accountant.
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