Email Marketing – How to pick the right company

Yes…there are quite a few email marketing companies out there, and I have tried just about every one of them. But how can you tell which company will give you the best ROI (return on investment)? That is the question that has been plaguing internet marketers for many years. Take it from someone who has been doing just that for over 10 years.

There are some companies that offer 2 or 3 million email sends for only $39.95. And then there are some “established” email marketing firms that will send out 1 million for $99.00. There are even some that have the audacity to claim that they will send out 5 or 10 million emails for $15.00 or $20.00! Are they really sending out these emails?

Like everything else, this old adage does apply when it comes to email advertising i.e. you get what you pay for. Are you expecting to get a “clean” send of millions of emails for just a few dollars? It’s not going to happen! The email marketer will do one of two things – he will either NOT send your email out to anybody, or he will use an old database…say 5-10 years old…where 98% of your emails go to “dead” email addresses.

Yes, there are some “reputable” email marketing companies out there and you can see them on the first page of Google under “email advertising”. They most likely do send out their email, or attempt to do so. But, based on personal experience, their returns are dismal. By dismal, I mean a 1 to 2 percent open rate (or at least that is what they show). That’s how many people actually even open the email. They send out 300,000 or 600,000 emails and you will be lucky if you see that even 2 percent looked at your email.

What makes matters even worse is the response rate. If you do get a 1 to 2 percent open rate – out of those you will be lucky to get a 1 percent response rate…and that is for a free program that gives away free things! How do I know that? Because I tried using their email services with 3 different free “giveaway” programs. Supposedly there were over 1 million emails sent (total for the 3 programs). Here is the sad part. For all 3 FREE programs which gave away free stuff, and with over one million emails sent, I got 4 sign-ups…TOTAL! And this was from a “reputable” email advertising company that “guarantees” their services!

So, how can you pick a quality email advertising company…a company that will give you a solid ROI? How can you get the most bang for your buck? There is one method that can get you a solid 10%...15%...even 20% or more ROI! And that method is to find a company that has a membership database that is relatively new AND that monitors their database carefully. The second part is the most important part and I will explain why.

There are many “cheaters” on the internet. They will join anything and everything to make money. Now, that alone is not a bad thing. But they do something that will dilute anyone’s membership database faster than you can blink an eye. They will set up phony accounts. And they will usually do that on websites that reward member’s for joining, or clicking things, or referring others, etc. I have seen them set up hundreds, if not thousands, of fake accounts and the website owner does not even realize that this is happening. There could be hundreds, or thousands, of accounts all belonging to just one member of that particular program!

Now you can see why you should select an email marketing company that monitors their membership database. If you don’t, you could be buying an email advertising package for 10,000 emails and it could conceivably just go to 2, 3, or 4 people! Yes, legally, the email marketing company did send out 10,000 emails but what is your ROI? And, more than likely, the email advertising company even knows that this is going on and they just turn their heads to this activity. Why? So they can sell you email advertising to 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 or more “members”. And these 10,000 “members” may only consist of 5 or 10 people.
The other aspect of selecting a solid email advertising company is to select one that constantly purges their databases of bad or dead email addresses, as well as non-responsive members. Like I said before, these companies may actually send out your email to 1 million in-boxes, but if no one is there to read them, then you have wasted your time and money.
When it comes to picking a solid email advertising company – take your time and look it over carefully. If you like what you see, then try a small test run before you commit to spending a lot of money. But do look for a company that DOES purge and monitor their member’s database. If you make that effort, you will save a lot of money and a lot of heartache!