Acquiring customers. Getting close enough to them. Reaching out to them and yanking that money right out of their pockets. If only it were that easy.
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"Your customer is already in concentration mode and the strength of your sales pitch can be powerful in such a setting." |
Those full-page ads, pop-ups consoles and clever, flash banners seem to be everywhere. While effective, they seem so impersonal, so cold. If only there were some way you could get closer to your customers. If only there was some thing you could do to get your visitor's absolute, undivided attention. Where is that wonderful place where you can sell directly to your surfers in a special, private environment?
That place is your surfer's email.
Now before you open a can and start dishing out the spam, back up. I am not in any way suggesting or telling you to send unauthorized email to your surfers. I am not recommending some anonymous mass-email campaign launched with a list of addresses you bought off some goon. I am going to tell you how to start an Opt-In newsletter.
Opt-In means that the person getting the email chose or opted to join your service. They came to your site through a banner or keyword search, read what your newsletter has to offer and joined your mailing list all of their own accord. Aside from all the junk that I get in my inbox, I receive a few newsletters that I look forward to. I find them helpful, unobtrusive and a great benefit of the one, true killer app: Email. In the next paragraphs, you will be shown some places and steps to help you learn how to sell through email responsibly and effectively.
What will you put in this newsletter of yours? Perhaps you could include adult humor, or links to free sites or even information about how your surfers can conceal their dirty, little trips on the porno net from suspicious minds.
I can't tell you what to put in your newsletter. I can tell you if you intend to promote your newsletter through your adult sites, you should probably stick with the theme of your already existing web content. If you have a hot babe that is the hostess for your page, perhaps a newsletter "from her" with a little porn story "she wrote" would be in keeping with your theme.
Find sponsors that will not object if you promote their programs in opt-in newsletters. Contact them if their terms of service do not specify your query and find out if the are accepting of it. Once you find sponsors that will let you do such selling, intersperse text-based links to them throughout your newsletter.
For instance, if you include a sex story in your mailing, insert sponsor links/copy right before the more exciting parts of the tale. The idea is to give your subscribers something they want to read all the way through, with an occasional ad that will get read along with the goodies. Your customer is already in concentration mode and the strength of your sales pitch can be powerful in such a setting.
Now that you know what content and sponsors you will have in your newsletter, you will need a system to get subscribers, have them sign up to you and a way to deliver your newsletter to them. Don't spend extra money on some special software for your list. Later when your list gets massive, you might need special programs or a bigger mail service, but that's later.
Right now, all you need is a paid email account such as your personal one, the email program from your browser (Outlook Express or Netscape Mail), another web-based email account for your self and a cut-and-paste emailer submission form to put on your sign-up page. The form code will send the information your surfers used to sign up directly to your specified personal account.
To use your browser email program all you have to do is make a special folder in your address book for all your incoming subscribers. When they sign up from your page, you will receive those sign-ups in your email and you simply add them to that folder of your address book as they come in.
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When you are ready to do a mail-out, you will address it to the web-based personal account mentioned above and then add your list subscriber's addresses as BCC's. BCC stands for Blind Courtesy Copy and is the way you can hide addresses of those you are mailing to. Once you have done all this, you just click the send button on your browser mailer and off your newsletter goes to all your waiting subscribers.
This may be a small way to start a list, but it's an honest way. The success of your newsletter depends on your content, your ability to sell within it and your effort to get as many new members to your list. Below are some helpful links to tools and sites that I have found useful with my newsletter:
Freedback
(http://www7.freedback.com/)
This is a nice little cut-and-paste emailer form for your website. It's free to use and is adult friendly.
DMOZ(http://dmoz.org/Adult/Computers/Internet/E-mail/)
DMOZ is the OPEN DIRECTORY SEARCH PROJECT and is the first, most important search directory to submit a URL.
Topica(http://www.topica.com)
Topica is a major opt-in emailer site. If you don't want to go through the fuss of messing with forms or using your personal account, Topica can handle your newsletter through their programs and servers. You just have to sign up with them and start a list.
Of course you will want to share links trades with other webmasters and advertise your newsletter prominently on your own adult pages.
The point is email is an efficient and inexpensive sales medium. It reaches your customers in a more personal and concentrated way. You don't have to bombard inboxes with obnoxious spam.
When you incorporate an opt-in newsletter into your cache of sales methods, you will find a whole market of happy customers you got honestly and fairly.