Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

My name is Tom.  15 years ago I set up a service that faxed discount offers to local businesses that signed up as a subscription basis to receive these faxes so they would not be considered junk fax. Each fax had 16 different businesses on it offering various offers or discounts. We sent this out on Mon. Tues. and Friday. I also sent out an extra sheet on Friday that had alternative advertisers like bars bowling alleys and theaters on it. One of the many problems I ran into was even though every business in town gladly signed up to receive the fax. The fax never seemed to make it past the front desk of the secretary and she did not even utilize it. And we were sending it out way to often not to mention there were not enough fax machines out there to spread it or to share it so there was no way for it to grow.

 

I was thinking of doing something like this only with Email maybe once a month and set it up in multiple cities. I would use a service like constant contact to email everything and control the subscribers and the un-subscribers. I even made up a simple web site to do a trial run.   WWW.Localeoffers.com.

  I was speaking with a local advertising company that has a snail mail approach with coupons and a web site to back them up. He told me horror stories of when he tried doing the same thing and it failed after 2 years of effort.  

I have had favorable response to the idea from advertisers just running the concept past them. But I would like to find someone that is doing the same thing so I can eliminate costly mistakes the first time.

 

Any ideas or comments would be appreaciated!

Well, there are lots of things you can do to make your email marketing campaigns come alive and make it past the receptionist "front desk" in this case the spam filters. I think if you`re going to use email marketing as your primary tool to advertise to businesses, first you need to educate yourself on how to use email marketing efficiently and spamming.
Somethings you can do are:
1. generate a list of people (businesses) that are interested on your email and local advertising on your web site (perhaps) let them upload banners by themselves or charge them to create banners and post them on your site.
2. Make your packages attractive to the businesses.
3. Send out Email Marketing Campaings on Wednesdays.
4. Introduce new businesses in your email campaigns (i.e. create a business spotlight section) where every week you choose a business and you put them on the front page.

There are more things you can do... I`ll tell you some more later..


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Tom,

Really seems like a great idea to me! It`s all about your "opt-in" subscriber base and at times being confused as SPAM. At times there can be a fine-line. The fine-line occurs when people forget they opted in some time ago and continue to get email they don`t remember they signed up for.

The more contact outside of just email you have with subscribers...the better!

I get FAX`d discount offers from a travel agency that I did business with years ago. It`s getting a bit annoying and I would probably repsond better if it came via email.

There are some creative things you can do with the whole process...Nuevolution has got some great ideas!

 

Tom,

In one of the last years Entrepeneru magazines (I don`t remember which month) but they had a survey of email advertising successes and homegrown or Opt-In lists were WAY more successful than a purchased list. If people Opt-It or sign up for a list they approve. If you purchase their list and spam them they should have the right to hunt you down imho :-)

I would go out and sign up subscribers with permission, No spam here. I will look for that issue. Thanks!

Why is it best to Send out Email Marketing Campaings on Wednesdays? Have you ever heard of someone offering the same sort of service for multiple businesses in local areas? I know they do it individualy but not as a city or town with multiple offers.

Well, according to the email marketing statistics and metrics, it`s been proven that wednesday morning is the best time to send out your email marketing material.
Here is something to read on :




-------------------------

Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net