NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on targeted lists vs. spam
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on targeted lists vs. spam
Cliff Kurtzman (cliff.kurtzman_at_tenagra.com)
Sat, 8 Mar 1997 00:14:05 -0600
Ever since my post a few days ago about my experience with our tennis list,
I've received a number of e-mails asking me whether I have or know of a
list about <fill in blank> that can be sponsored or advertised upon to
reach members of a specific niche.
Since the number of lists Tenagra directly operates is limited to a few,
and since this subject appears to be of wider interest to online ads folks,
I thought I would provide an overview of some of the sources of mailing
lists and discussion lists we turn to when researching e-mail ad buys for a
client. Unfortunately, it has been a rare occurrence for clients to be
interested in e-mail ad buys or e-mail list sponsorships. However, this
seems to be changing as the net.acceptable use of push technology like
e-mail has finally become an "in topic."
When using the resources I've listed below (except for the first one), be
aware that most lists do not accept any sort of advertising/sponsorship or
(in the case of discussion lists) commercial posts. You need to look at
each one on a case-by-case basis and figure out what the rules are for that
particular list. Often the list guidelines will be sent to you when you
subscribe, or you can e-mail the list owner asking what is allowable.
Finding the right online community to get a message out can take a good bit
of effort!
Also remember that sometimes the best approach is just to build your own
list. Create a web site with substantive information on a topic, publicize
it, and offer visitors a form to subscribe for additional information.
Yes, it is a lot of work and it does take time, but ultimately it can be
quite productive. In some cases we have advised clients that one of the
principle measures of the success of their web site should be the number of
new mail list subscriptions they collect. Certainly that is the cases with
our own corporate site -- we were very pleased when a recent design change
increased newsletter subscriptions by a factor of 30!
In any event, here are the places you can find e-mail lists:
Sponsorable Mailing Lists and Newsletter
http://www.avenue.com/about/ads.html
(this link was not working at the time of my post, but I'm
hopeful it is a temporary outage.)
List of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists
http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/
E-ZINE-LIST
http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/
eZines Database
http://www.dominis.com/Zines/
Todd Kuipers' E-mail-zines List
http://propagandist.com/tkemzl/
List of Lists
http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html
Liszt
http://www.liszt.com/
Tile.Net
http://www.tile.net/
Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences
http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/
Beyond these sources, there are also a number of entities that run large
groups of lists that accept advertising or dedicated mailings. Rosalind
Resnick and the gang at Netcreations operate the Postmaster Direct service,
which has created hundreds of niche lists that you can send dedicated
mailings to at 10 to 20 cents per address. All subscribers signed up to
the lists voluntarily with full knowledge that the lists would be used to
send them commercial mailings. See:
http://www.netcreations.com/postdirect/business.html
Another source of a large number of lists is Mercury Mail,
( http://www.merc.com/ ). Mercury Mail offers subscribers lists providing
news on a large number of niche topics. I could not find much information
on how to sponsor/advertise their lists from their web site, but from
correspondence with them I understand that they offer banner opportunities
in conjunction with their news distribution.
Richard Hoy and I will be exploring this subject in greater depth in a
session on 'Advertising via E-Mail and Newsgroups' at the Web Advertising
'97 Conference in April. See: http://www.thunderlizard.com/webad97.html
--Cliff
Cliff Kurtzman
The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com/
281/480-6300
Internet marketing, public relations, consulting and web site design
