NO!!! It is low cost advertising, but it is not free! Read on to learn what other "hype" you may be a victim of! Bulk email can mean a tremendous increase in your sales or web site traffic and we strongly believe in the power of this marketing medium, but you should know all the facts prior to deciding that bulk email is for you.
Absolutely! Bulk Email pulls in more orders than all other advertising on a cost per order basis. Most of the time we experience sales ratios of .5-1%, but it all depends on your ad copy.
"America Online's own product pitches, made to customers as they sign on, are phenomenally successful. They are the profit driver for the company."
-Greg Shove, Vice President-America Online Inc.
"A gold mine for those who can take advantage of bulk email programs"
-The New York Times
"email is an incredible lead generation tool"
-Crains Magazine
"Apart from creating a Web Page for your company, there's another do-it-yourself method of online advertising that has powerful potential. I'm speaking of bulk e-mail, a method of targeting appropriate online readers by the thousands or even millions and, with a simple click of your mouse, send them your marketing letter via e-mail."
-Entrepreneur Magazine
"Blows away traditional Bulk Mailing"
-Advertising Age
"It's truly arrived. Email is the killer application so far in the online world"
-Kate Delhagen, Forrester Research Analyst
There is no law against sending bulk email that we are aware of. Hundreds of companies are sending out email marketing letters every day.
Bulk email is a cost-effective means of delivering your advertising message to prospective customers. The bulk email industry is getting a lot of attention due to its growing popularity, its growing use (and abuse), and AOL vs. Cyberpromotions - in the USA.
AOL vs. Cyberpromo resulted in allowing AOL to CHOOSE to block unsolicited bulk email FROM Cyberpromo to it’s subscribers. Unfortunately, AOL is allowed to try to censor what its members read. This has NO IMPACT on the bulk email industry as a whole. If you are a smart, considerate member of the bulk email community, you should have no problem bulk e-mailing to AOL members.
Cyberpromo simply tried to use its first amendment right of free speech as its defense against AOL’s censorship.
#1) This ruling is Not Law. It is a court ruling (or interpretation of the law by the court) regarding free speech, and a company's right to censor materials that its customers see.
#2) This ruling is Not going to BECOME Legislation in the USA. It only allows commercial services the right to do what they want in regard to their businesses. South Africa has NO laws on this !
#3) This ruling is Not, in any way, offering monetary recourse to any "victim" of unsolicited email ads. The only possible implication could be that ISPs, should they decide to make a futile investment in the technology, could attempt to block bulk email just as AOL has done. However, there's always a way around it.
We don't think so. For those who have concerns in this area, you should read the transcripts of the US Federal Trade Commission Hearing On Internet Privacy & Bulk Email. A transcript of the Federal Trade Commission Hearings on Consumer privacy and bulk email can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/privacy2/index.html As I recall, the 13th and 14th dealt with bulk email; mostly the 14th I think. They cover a lot of ground, so you have to read at least those two days all the way through. Another source of info is http://www.democracy.net/archive/06121997/
Before the South African Government decides if a law should be passed or not, it will only be many years down the line !
There are over 60 million internet users and email addresses, with thousands being added daily.
These addresses can be purchased from us !
If you are going to advertise your product or service with bulk email, you will need several tools.
- An address finder. This is a utility that can search for email addresses. You can do this manually, but it is a lot easier to let a program automate this task.
- An email address extractor. This is a program that will strip the email addresses out of text files, such as classified ads, web pages or the files made by the address finder, and it will create a mailing list.
- A remove list. A remove list allows you to avoid most of the "internet terrorists" and mail bombers (generally the least civilized group of people you ever want to meet, dedicated to keeping us in a world where trees must be cut down and habitat destroyed just to send an advertisement and make a living for ourselves). A remove list is a must so you can avoid mailing those who don't want commercial email and have asked to be removed. (The good news is that studies show 70% of the population does not mind targeted advertisements!)
- A mailer. This software reads the address list and sends a message to all recipients on the list, either "Blind Carbon Copy" or "Personalized." It is important that the program function one of these two ways so that the recipient does not see all the other addresses to which you sent the mailing.
- A bulk email friendly ISP. There are NONE in South Africa ! A bulk email friendly ISP provides you with a reply address and a web page that won't be cancelled. A bulk email ISP usually provides mail servers and web hosting only, not dialup access. Cloaking programs usually insert extra bogus information about where a message initiated, but your REAL identity is still there! Please be careful: some of our competitors make false promises in this area. Your recipient might not be able to figure out which one is really you, but they can and will complain to everyone mentioned in the header. The mail server administrator can still find you and cancel your account. You will have a more pleasant experience if you use a bulk email friendly ISP.
- An ISP other than AOL! AOL is an online service and WILL NOT work for mailing. You will want an ISP that doesn't password protect its newsgroups. This is so you can collect addresses from your ISP's Newsgroup feed and access your bulk email server without long distance charges.
You will need a bulk email friendly ISP and your regular dialup ISP. You use your dialup ISP to access the internet, and use the bulk email ISP for sending your mail. Beware of companies that claim you can send mail through your regular mail server. Most of the time you will get caught, no matter what software you have. There is also the matter of violating the terms of service of your local ISP. Your dialup ISP cannot afford to let you bulk email through their server for R99.00 per month. After all, they budgeted only enough server resources for a few email messages per day per user. I know people who have crashed their local dialup provider's mail server and received bills for R1,000 and up!! - I was one !
Bulk email in any form violates the terms of service of most dialup providers. They will cancel your account if anyone informs them of your activities. (Somebody will tell them.) It is very expensive to "burn up" a R99 account every day.
Some ISPs will block domains that bulk e-mail. Your dialup provider does not want the mail of their other users, who have abided by the terms of service, to be blocked. It is not fair to the other users if they can't send a message to their friends and relatives because of you.
A bulk email server expects to handle a large number of email messages per user; consequently the number of users per email server is kept very low. (That's also the reason the average cost for a bulk email account is around R2500 per month.) Your local dialup provider expects only a few messages per user per day and has many, many users per email server. It is possible for you to crash their mail server with large mailings and multiple connections.
If you are sending only a very small amount, say 300 per day, there are a few dialup providers who will allow you to use their servers. Just call around in your local area or send a message to a local ISP .
How much email will a mail server handle in one day?
Well, that depends on how many undeliverables are in your list. One mail server could handle up to 500,000 outgoing emails per day. The more deliverable your list is, the faster the mail server will go. Your computer only has to send 19 or so email addresses and then 1 copy of your ad to the mail server, but the mail server has to connect to the recipient's mail server, get a confirmation that the recipient's email address is valid, and then send 1 copy of your message for EACH address.
In other words, you can send email from your computer to the mail server much, much faster than it can deliver your messages. When a mail server gets more messages than it can immediately process, it puts them in a "queue". When the mail "queue" is full, you experience "time outs" and slow mailing speeds from your computer to the mail server.
One of the largest bulk email ISPs puts out 2 million pieces of mail per day with about 200 customers. That comes to an average of 10,000 pieces of email per customer per day. This is fairly normal for the industry, so even though they don't state a daily limit on the number of emails you can send, there is a practical limit to what the mail server will handle.
Programs like Stealth and Extractor Pro make multiple simultaneous connections to email servers. This can be done with one modem and dialup account. It's the equivalent of having several browsers open at the same time. The actual speed of the program will depend on how many accounts you are willing to pay for. Bulk email ISPs require you to pay per connection that you make to their mail server. The average cost is R1800.00 per month for a single connection. Obviously, if you plan to make 5 or more connections, it is more cost effective to buy your own mail server and pay to have it co-located with a bulk email ISP. WARNING: Do not "highjack" or mail through servers you don't have an account with. It is illegal, and cases have been successfully prosecuted in the state of California in the USA.
No. With your own software, you can constantly add thousands of new email addresses every day. You know the addresses are fresh. You will have much better results if you collect you own email addresses that are targeted to the type of person to whom you want to market your product or service. The addresses you collect yourself will be much more deliverable than a purchased list. We maintain a " fresh" list and remove ALL those who do not want bulk email !
Yes. There are many businesses looking for someone to mail for them.
Flames are very nasty emails sent back to you by people who do not want commercial email. If you are advertising through bulk email, you WILL get flames using language you wouldn't expect from a drunken sailor. Don't fall into the temptation of writing back to these people. You will not change their mind and you certainly won't make any money. We have Extractor Pro set up to filter our email for profanity. It automatically adds the address to our remove list and deletes the email from our mailbox. Less than 1% of the people to whom you mail your ads will flame you.
That's easy. Most bulk email programs have automated features for handling remove requests.
Although you don't pay based on the number of messages you send or receive, it does cost the ISP a small amount to receive and store each message. Currently, ISPs have no means to be reimbursed for the transmission and storage of unsolicited commercial advertisements. I have heard that the government did a study and found that spam costs the average person 15 cents per year. If anyone can confirm this study, please email us.
If you are concerned about your email advertising messages being blocked from some recipients, you should get your own domain name. That way, no one has ever sent bulk email from that domain before. Most ISPs don't block a domain until they receive numerous complaints. Since the majority of people (65%) don't mind bulk email advertising, your domain will be good for quite a while, especially if you target your audience.
The Internic charges US$100 for the first two years of domain name maintenance. Companies who use bulk email on a regular basis consider changing domain names just part of the process.
So why put up with all these problems ? Leave them to us - and save your ISP connection !