How To Profit From The Coming Email Marketing CrisisBy: Dr.Mani SivasubramanianThere's a quiet storm brewing and when it hits... "Crisis? What crisis? I thought email marketing was going great!" If that's what ran through your mind as you read the title of this article, listen up... it's time you started making 'disaster preparations'. For years - I think since 1999 - talk about an AOL email tax (or Yahoo! charging you to send email) has been doing the rounds on the Internet. A recent revival in the rumor was based on AOL's plan to impose a 'quarter cent per email' charge that guarantees bypassing email filters. A wave of emotional debate has been unleased on discussion forums and email lists (much of which was probably filtered out, unless senders paid 'email tax' on their rants!). Some folks think if there is a charge for each email sent out, then it will further separate good marketers from the bad. Premium flagged emails from deep-pocketed firms willing to pay the 'email tax' might help reduce spam - but then, again, maybe not. And few others are firmly convinced the entire concept is a 'non-starter'. But regardless of whether or not 'email stamps' will become reality, it's time you started worrying about the increasing unreliability of email as a communication tool - and working on alternatives for your ebusiness needs. Almost every email marketer has experienced this... dropping deliverability rates, irregular email transmission, stripping out of images and HTML code, filtering into junk email folders and an occasional abuse complaint or two - even from subscribers who opt-in to lists... twice! This worsening scenario has forced even a die-hard email fan like me to explore other options, and build alternate channels of contact with subscribers, customers, donors, sponsors and friends. Going offline, and sending out letters and postcards by postal mail is probably the best long-term solution. Expensive, yes. But still, much more reliable than other options in getting your marketing message into the right hands. Imagine the cost saved from an aborted refund request, or a repeat sale from a client follow-up message, or a sale conversion of a hesitant prospect who read your latest offer. Surely the numbers will work out in your favor, even if you pay for printing and postage. But if you're obsessed with electronic-only communication, there are still other avenues of effective interaction with your audience. Online discussion forums and bulletin boards are one example. For 2 years now, I've been building and growing online forums around my various product lines. The interaction on the board helps in many ways - user generated content, better search engine ranking, a heightened sense of community. And with most forum software including a 'Private Message' route of communicating with your audience, it's possible to send out marketing messages without the fear of filters or paying extra for the privilege of doing it. An email announcement system built into the process can also alert members to the receipt of a new message - combining the reliability of forum messaging with the notification benefits of email. Desktop marketing caught the eye of some marketers for a while. A powerful concept, the application is a tool that sits on your computer desktop and receives messages from a specific sender... and flashes when there's something new for you to look at. No filters. No costs. No delays. The only serious limitation to desktop marketing is the need for multiple applications, one for each channel you wish to keep open. It's hard to see consumers cluttering up their computer 'real estate' with dozens of little buttons, each flashing at random to catch the viewer's eye! So unless you're ready to bite the bullet and agree to pay for email to be delivered, you are going to have to explore this one last option - and a very powerful one it is - Blogs and RSS feeds. In 2003, I re-activated my dormant blogs, and haven't looked back since. Every niche, every product, every theme I work on has one or more blogs - all acting as very easy-to-use, highly reliable and practically hassle-free contact systems to keep in touch with audiences. The versatility of blogs is enhanced by RSS feeds - a technology that allows material posted on your blog to be automatically 'syndicated' and distributed in a format that can be grabbed and deciphered by a 'feed reader' on the client side. Here's how the process works. You write a message and post it to your blog. It is published on the Web for a visitor to read. The RSS feed is updated. Anyone 'subscribed' to your feed receives a summary of the post directly delivered to their feed reader. The viewer has a choice of reading the post in the feed reader, or clicking on the link to read more on the blog. Once there, readers can follow any other links right to your sales page - and place their orders! To complete the circle of electronic marketing, autoresponder email services like Aweber have integrated RSS feeds into their system. When you post to your blog, and link the RSS feed to your Aweber autoresponder, a summary of your post is automatically inserted into an ezine template and emailed to your list - creating an extra channel to deliver the same message, effortlessly. So start building multiple channels of communication with your list - and do it today. That way, the next time AOL trumpets blare out news of 'email tax', you'll be able to smile and ignore it - while your ebusiness chugs along happily anyway. = = = About the Author: Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is author of 'Blog Profit Ideas Exposed' - His excellent content resource on Marketing with RSS feeds teaches the system he has advocated for years, building and maintaining multiple channels of contact with prospects, subscribers and clients.
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