Consider this little story a friendly warning. This is a true story of how I lost over $2000 with no sales using opt-in email marketing.
I want to explain the difference between email marketing in general and opt-in email marketing services that you actually pay to send out your email.
In general, email marketing is phenomenal. The constant stream of communication you can set up through your own list will ensure steady sales if you have a good offer and targeted leads. I highly endorse email marketing, but only if you get your leads for free.
Paying is just as risky as any other form of paid advertising, and what I'm talking about in this article are services that have pre-built lists where you can pay and send your ad out to the list.
Anyhow, a few years ago, I had been reading on a few websites and found out very quickly that all the experts were really big on email marketing. It eally excited me that I could mail to people over and over again without having to pay any postage like in snail mail.
So, knowing just enough to be dangerous, I found a search engine and looked up "email marketing" or some phrase like that. One of these opt-in email marketing companies appeared at the top. It was then that I made my first newbie marketing mistake.
I figured, "Hey, these guys are at the top of the search engines. They are one of the top 2000 sites in the world, too. They must offer a top-notch service with all of that." Man, was I stupid!
Instead of researching further, I proceeded to order a mailing to about 11000 addresses, which cost me 20 cents per address, which I figured sounded okay even though it was a little over $2000.
The first mistake I made here is that I had no idea what each subscriber would be worth. This is the biggest mistake you can make in marketing. If you don't know the value of a lead, you are likely to lose money unless you find some really cheap advertising.
I did, in fact, get 2% of the people to subscribe through my opt-in page, which was right around 210 people. This was good. I was really excited the first day when I suddenly saw dozens of people on my list.
Then, the nightmare began. You see, I know now that 200 subscribers just isn't worth that much. You can expect to earn about $1 per opt-in subscriber to your list, and these must be true opt-in subscribers who respond to
your ad, not those generic leads who respond to receive multiple offers.
To make a long story short, I made zero sales on this campaign. It was heartbreaking. I made so many mistakes which I can't go into here with that small list, but the moral of this story is clear.
Never, ever pay for opt-in email marketing. Learn how to build your own list with free viral traffic and other risk-free methods. Buying leads is simply too risky.
Robert Eckert
Lead Generation Home
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