NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> e-mail marketing the right way
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> e-mail marketing the right way
Michael J. Sexton (preinc_at_mail.albany.net)
Sun, 17 Aug 1997 14:25:18 -0500 (CDT)
At 06:56 PM 8/14/97 -0700, Andy Rebele wrote:
><snip>
>
>Over several weeks I read various newsgroups and web sites where
>the charter is person to person sales. I read every post, and
>put relevant posts into a database with the real name, e-mail
>address, and other information from the content of the post. At
>the end of that period, when the site was ready, I sent out
>about 3,500 e-mails to these people, each with a personalized
>note (mail merged, but prepared by a human being). It had taken
>me 2-3 weeks of full time work to read each post and to
>determine which people were legitimate prospects for my site and
>which were not. Suffice it to say it was very time consuming.
>
>The results over five days (with no search engine support):
>
>3,500 e-mails
>100 listings of things to sell (2.8%)
>1,000 unique visitors (29%)
>35 remove requests+flames (1%)
>
First, applause to Andy for working so hard.
Second, I am not sure I understand the problem with automating messages.
Why is it "unethical" to automate all of the work Andy did on this project.
My understanding of the bulk E-mail software packages is that they obtain
addresses (ussually from usenet groups) and send e-mail in bulk to those
addresses using mail merge techniques similar to Andy's.
Suppose I sell software that is of particular interest to JAVA programmers.
The implication (and excuse me Andy if I am taking this too far) is that it
would be proper for me to obtain e-mail addresses by hand from the news
groups for Java programmers but unethical (or at least dumb business) to
automate that process. The result however seems to me to be the same. An
e-mail is generated in some mail merge function and sent to the people who
post to the Java groups.
Andy's method may give a business advantage because it allows him to
personalize the message (e.g. Dear Mr. Sexton or Dear Andy) from the info he
gets by reviewing each message indivdually. I would like to see comprable
numbers from someone who automated the E-mail process. If the net profits
are the same then why do all the extra work?
Mike
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