The Best Mail Marketing Solution!

[neosite]

Greetins All!

This is a 3 part question....

Backstory:I was recently approached by a potential client about incorporating an effective email campaign for a series of Radio Stations that collectively cover all demographics including one that streams on the net.

Hmmm i thought for a moment....And then mentioned some of the information i was going to need from him (like how are you currently storing the information that we would need to work with, who is doing it, what kind of effort are you willing to put into the campaign, how do you want to integrate this new campaign with the "man on the street" sales staff etc.etc..and a brief discussion about $$$$).

I figure that that would buy me a bit of time to finish up a few of my other current projects as well as work on some more analysis (this post being some of that).

Here's the question:

Part 1:
There are 3 obvious fronts that i see that need to be handled.

1)The current advertisers.
2)The prospective advertisers.
4)The radio listeners.

Each of these groups would obviously need some personalization built into an automated system with a number of fields. And each of these groups would need to recieve thier varying email/newsletters with seperate frequencies.

What are some of your thoughts or experiences that you may have encountered in your past in the development of such a system? This info would be greatly appreciated by myself...and i am quite sure, many others...

Part 2:

Before i suggest some sort of solution to this person, i was wondering if anyone has some good or bad experiences with various systems that they would like to share?

Part 3:

Since some of the work would include copywrighting, have you found that it was better work from a % of sales returned or at flat rate. And, if you were working at a flat rate, what is a reasonable rate to charge (by the piece?).

I have a number of ideas on all of these fronts. But, i don't want to taint the potential responses so i am going to refrain for now and hopefully we can address them and more in the near future.

Thank you in advance for you consideration and time with this post. (i realize that part 1 & 2 sound sort of the same. But, they also can be addressed very differently. The ball is in your court!)

[nottheusual1]

Hi Neosite, I'll try to help:

Part 1 - Just create 3 separate lists, but be sure to copy your advertisers on the "listener" list so they can see the newsletters at work - especially if they are paying to advertise in the newsletter.

This also requires 3 separate creatives to be generated and maintained - to what degree depends on the "recyclability" of the info you need to communicate as well as the frequency of delivery.

Part 2 - As for a specific system, there are too many out there to critique any small group and not miss good candidates. Start with what the customer currently has available via their Web host - or your Web host - and see if it can do the standard subscribe/unsub and handle the volumes you require. Most have been doing this long enough to have settled on something that works for most of their customers.

Part 3 - for copywriting, we charge a flat fee (based on how much time we invest). For maintaining the mail lists we charge a flat fee (we have software that does it, but you must give it a value or the customer won't appreciate it). For handling the Emails we charge a flat fee ($0.03 to $0.09, depending on the volume - and we do all smaller volumes).

The percentage of sales thing gets too murky and can create more customer bad will than increased revenue, especially the first time you question their numbers.

We made great money for a while doing these things - back when they were still kind of "black magic" - but no more. It's all about time, now, since that is all we have to sell/bill. So, we make it as no-brainer as possible and take as little human time as we can.

Make it a really mechanical process that can be managed by anybody that can read and don't spend your first quarter's profit from the undertaking over-analyzing everything. It is easy to find things that take up time but don't generate additional revenue.

I can still remember the days when you could make a good buck being a Web host - things that made good $$ just a few years ago are so commoditized now that you should think many traditional Web "services" through long and hard before getting into them, if you don't already do it. Why? They generate so little revenue that you need dozens of customers to use your service to justify the overhead costs.

:not_the_usual1
[you decide]
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All in my opinion, which, when combined carefully with a $1 bill, gets you a cup of coffee at the corner store.

[neosite]

Thanks for your response.

Those are some great insights.

I especially appreciate the comments on time management and $ issues.

Thank you for taking your time to share the knowledge.