An Unexploited Market: Striking Gold Without Searching for El Dorado

Companies have been focused on using the Internet to market goods and services to the consumer. Many see this as the major revenue stream on the net. But there is an undiscovered El Dorado, a goldmine of opportunity that very few have begun to mine.

Traditionally, companies have tried to capitalize on the Internet by establishing a Web page where consumers can research and buy products or services on-line. These Web sites are elaborate brochures touting the company's many qualities and competencies. A few companies, like Amazon.com, and retail giant L.L. Bean, have turned these online retail brochures into huge success stories. Many companies have tried to replicate this success, with uneven results, stumbling because of a few inherent problems with the Web page.

Web pages are static. They require a potential customer to find them, and once found, to bookmark the page and forget about it.

Some have managed to mitigate these problems with direct email offers. For instance, I periodically logged on to Amazon.com to look at the latest fiction releases. Some time last year, emails from Amazon began arriving in my inbox. These emails announced new releases of fiction, and in some cases offered a discount. Links took me directly to the Web page. In some cases, I have bought books that I might never have bought, or might have bought from elsewhere. I am not alone.

The Motivation to Go Online

More than half of American adults are online. They use the Internet for two primary purposes, email and product research. Almost half of Americans now use email and more than one-third use the Internet to search for product and service information before making online purchases.

Not surprisingly, marketers have been quick to try to capitalize on this effective sales channel. Opt-In News, published by Keaton Communications, recently reported that 54.2 percent of advertisers used emails to promote their products at the end of 2001, making direct email marketing the most used retail channel on the Internet. Almost 60 percent of email marketing campaigns in 2001 were focused on retail.

The report also revealed where the undiscovered gold I previously mentioned will be found. Amazingly, only 20 percent of these companies used email newsletters, and so capitalized on the first use, but failed to make use of the second reason people log online. Email newsletters fuse the two main purposes for which people go, email and research, and it's more effective than simple email offers, which often come across as "SPAM."

But there is an even larger undiscovered mother lode. Consumers are only a portion, and a minority portion at that, of the users surfing the Internet. Nearly 80 percent of the managers and professionals in the nation use the Internet at work. 70 percent of sales, marketing, technical support and administrative workers use the Internet in their jobs. Again, the two biggest uses were email first, and research second.

Leading the Reader to Read the Newsletter

Given this, it might seem astonishing that the marketers haven't begun mining the B2B gold with email newsletters. The reason is that most marketers use the form poorly.

The average businessperson now gets over 50 emails a day. When they open their in-box they have three thoughts in mind ? which do I read, which I save to read later, and which do I delete without opening?

Therefore, the first rule is to only send your newsletter to people who want it. Encourage people in your database to opt-in to receiving your newsletter. This brings us to the second cardinal rule, the newsletter must provide value if they are to continue receiving it, opening it, reading it, and most importantly, acting on it.

Most marketers simply want to beat the company drum, talk about new products or services, tout recent awards, new hires, or promising mergers. But the better strategy is to focus the content of the newsletter on the reader. It is better to pull than to push with your content, better to provide articles that explore issues, engage dialogue, solve problems common to your readers than it is to simply blow your own horn. Americans are so snowed under with advertising that we have effective filters. Anything smacking of a pitch will be screened, the message lost.

Marketers can keep their newsletter in the 'read and saved column' by making sure their content meets the following criteria:

Relevant ? the content speaks to the customer's interests and not your own.

Anticipated ? Distribute on a regular basis so people expect your newsletter to arrive on a certain day, but don't publish so often they become fatigues with you.

Monitored ? One of the best benefits provided by online marketing channels is the reporting. Monitor how readers are looking at your newsletter and alter it to conform to their interests.

Email newsletters with timely, interesting articles are more apt to get forwarded, increasing the number of readers with time. Everyone who reads the newsletter and decides to opt-in to a company's list is a qualified lead. B2B newsletters are the latest undiscovered gold in the virtual world.

Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl's notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn't wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.

In The News:


pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


5 Rules of Forwarding E-mails

Forwarding of e-mails is one of the topics I get... Read More

How to Make Your Email Smile

Technology has a tendency to be impersonal and unfriendly -... Read More

Spam Check Your Newsletter for FREE

Spam is a bigger and bigger problem nowadays. Recently Ralph... Read More

How to Structure Your Follow-Up Sequence for Maximum Profit

Before I do this, let me describe how autoresponders work.... Read More

Interview With Michael Murray: Autoresponder Basics

This interview is with Michael Murray, the author of a... Read More

Email Etiquette: How To Send Emails People Will Read

You may remember a time before there was email?a time... Read More

Email Marketing - Building A Mail List

Millions of people use their computer everyday as a form... Read More

Taking Care of Busines... E-mail

In this digital day and age, communicating through email is... Read More

Are Your Subscribers Receiving Your Newsletter?

In my e-mail one day, I received the following message:... Read More

Is Your Autoresponder Truly Promoting Your Company?

Getting other people to promote your web site is one... Read More

Lesson #5: Four Easy Ways to Kill Your Business Using Your Autoresponder... And How to Avoid Them

The importance of building an opt-in list over spamming (a.k.a.,... Read More

Dont Use FFAs To Build Your Newsletter Subscriber

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term,... Read More

20 Ways To Increase Your Traffic And Sales Using Free Follow-Up Autoresponder Courses

An autoresponder course is a group of articles or information... Read More

The Fastest List Growing Secret

Are you running ads and marketing with tag lines that... Read More

Dear Ms. Subscriber - Please Dont Unsubscribe

Don't be insulted. Don't take it as a personal rejection.... Read More

10 Essential Steps to Developing a Successful E-Mail Marketing Campaign

Developing and executing a successful e-mail marketing campaign is becoming... Read More

Promote Your Products Without Annoying Spam Filters

How many times have you realized that your email simply... Read More

Seven Ways to Dramatically Increase Your Email Marketing Profitability

1. The Power of SevenWhen choosing a price point for... Read More

The Moneys In The List - But How Much?

The internet seems to be full of hyped up business... Read More

Why You Need a Newsletter

If you're a small business owner you definitely need promotion.... Read More

Email Etiquette IV

Further to my previous issues this subject continues - part... Read More

To Lead or Not to Lead?

Working with Leads or Opt-In Clients can be very confusing... Read More

Signature File Dos and Donts

Signature files have been around since, well, before most current... Read More

Viral Marketing Tips: Greeting Cards

When we speak about viral marketing, we are not talking... Read More

Five of the Most Powerful Elements In Opt-in Marketing

Lack of trust is the biggest problem marketers have on... Read More

How To Use a Message Sequence to Increase Your Sales

If there's one thing I've learnt in over 3 years... Read More

The Magic Of Email

These days email is taken for granted and used perhaps... Read More

5 Things You NEED to Know About Your AOL 9.0 Subscribers

In Fall 2003, America Online (AOL) released its brand new... Read More

The Lowdown: How To Create And Send HTML Email

I am frequently asked how to create and send HTML... Read More

Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders

An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site... Read More

The Opt-In Secret

Everyone knows that in order to be successful online you... Read More

The Power of a Referral Script

The key to the success of e-commerce is in the... Read More

How To Build Your Greatest Opt-In List

I get e-mails all the time from people on my... Read More