Our E-mail Addiction - 2

In marketing, do you use a letter or HTML--or both?

Kim Zinda's five ways to use e-mail marketing are:

* Provide subscription visibility.
* Employ e-mail onboarding programs.
* Use promotional activities to acquire new e-mail names.
* Append e-mail names to an existing database.
* Fine-tune your data.

I have no quarrel with anything Zinda says in her 937-word piece and have provided a hyperlink below FYI. Zinda's dealing with the technical aspects of e-mail marketing.

But once the electronics are in place--the right audience and the ability to reach them--what do you say and how best to say it?

I just ran across a Forrester Research report from July 2008 that predicts the volume of e-mail marketing will hit a high point of 838 billion messages by 2013.

Yes, the cost of e-mail is low. But with this huge blitz of traffic, the message must be compelling and relevant--from the subject line in the inbox to the landing page and the follow-up.

Always remember that, at any point along the way, the effort is a mouse click away from oblivion--whereupon ROI is nonexistent and your time spent is wasted.

Marketing Strategy
My early experience was in the world of book continuity series--giving away the first book free (or for a buck) and selling the other 23 volumes at the rate of one book a month. Success was measured by the average number of paid books per customer.

If a customer quit after the first free book, you had what consultant Bob Doscher labels a "premium bandit"--a person who sends away for anything free with no intention of buying.

In the continuity business, you began to show a profit somewhere around volume three or four. If the average number of paid volumes was six, you had a success on your hands. However, if a customer could be persuaded to hang on for just two more volumes, the profit increase would be huge, because acquisition costs were amortized over the first two paid volumes.