Re: Email List Sponsorships

From: Stuart Hochwert <shochwert_at_myfree.com>
Date: Wed 07 Feb 2001 17:14:16 -0600

NELSON E. TIMKEN, ESQ. WROTE:
> I have two questions in addition to yours about email
> marketing. First, a very basic one- how do you grow an
> email opt-in list to that size? How do you begin to
> really pick up numbers in an age when people are so
> concerned about "Spam".
>
> Second, what is the viability as a marketing tool of
> HTML email vis a vis regular text?

1. Growth - I started our first newsletter 5 years ago
in my basement. Today we publish 46 newsletters with
over 3,600,000 subscribers. We have advertised on web
sites, in other newsletters and done swaps with
publishers. I suggest you look at
www.newslettersforfree.com and www.sJMail.com - both
offer programs to generate subscribers for other
publishers on a fixed per subscriber basis for about
$.15 - $.25 per subscriber, and generate about 100 -
500 subscribers per week. MyFree.com also helps
companies build subscriber files (or any leads
required), but we charge $1.00 - $2.00 per lead and
generally only work with companies that can take 2,000
- 10,000 leads per week.

2. Spam - we have been since day one 100% double
opt-in. Someone subscribes and we send a confirming
e-mail to make sure they want the newsletter and were
not signed up in error or as a prank. Only once the
respond do we add them to our database. Thus, we have
a very low rate of Spam complaints. Given our size, we
do get a few inquiries, but simply direct people to our
sign-up form at http://join.myfree.com so they can see
our double opt-in process firsthand. As a business
issue, Spam complaints are not serious given our
methods.

3. HTML - generally HTML will get a 15 - 20% higher
response rate. We are 100% text but do special issues
in HTML and will convert to 85% HTML in the third
quarter this year. Some consumers, including myself,
prefer text. And, we have test results that show text
does as well as HTML for select inertest groups.

Hope this helps.

Stuart Hochwert, shochwert_at_myfree.com
MyFree.com LLC, 3400 Dundee Road, Suite 236, Northbrook, IL 60062
847-205-9320 Main 847-205-9340 Fax
184th Most Visited Web Property (PC Data Online, 10/00)
Over 3,600,000 opt-in newsletter subscribers, www.MyFree.com





Received on Wed Feb 07 2001 - 17:14:16 CST