At 11:43 AM 6/23/2001, Ken Griffith wrote: >Regarding the idea of get-paid-to-read-spam that was being bandied about: >the only problem with that kind of marketing model, assuming that it is >based on an opt-in program, is that it attracts people who want something >for nothing. The people who chase freebies generally have a completely >different mindset from paying customers. Agree wholeheartedly. Those who still believe that everything on the Net should be free don't like to spend money. Those who recognize that the days of the free ride (and the resulting failures of the dotcoms over the last 18 months) are over will pay. >So, if I were a business, I would not waste my money paying people to read >my ads. I want to find a target market that WANTS to read my advertisement >so they can pay ME for my product. That is why text-based ads located in >magazines and websites where your target market congregates are the best >"bang for the buck". Like the Gold Economy, which I would say even if Ken didn't run it (and my partner Elwyn Jenkins didn't found it). It's an excellent source of information. >Frankly, the demand for a list of all 280,000 e-gold customers would be a >low quality list even if e-gold did rent it out. Only about 40% of those >accounts actually have money in them, and even fewer have more than $10 >worth. > >So, if I wanted to build an ad campaign for e-gold customers, I would try to >think of what interests them and where to look. > >Frankly, the e-gold list is at this point the BEST list because it has the >most interested and active people in the e-gold market. In the advertising >industry they call this a hot list. Maybe. I own 19 discussion or mailing lists and now only accept advertising on one. Two years ago, they were very good for me and the advertiser. Last year they weren't bad. This year they are marginal at best. I also subscribe to approx 50 lists now (down from 135 a year ago). And most of my fellow list owners are finding the same thing. One guy has a highly-targeted list of 15,000 names from which he used to generate $120,000 annually from ad revenue. Today it is down to $10,000. Discussion lists are another area where folks expect them to be provided for free, are not willing to pay for the information and often don't support sponsors, even though it is the sponsors who support the lists. A good example is the Association for International Business which reaches 12,000 members in 200 countries. It is the best international business resource available anywhere (I am a member of the board of directors). The founder tried to get members to pay a measly $18 per year for the services provided, which are excellent. They couldn't even get 500 people to pay. Worse yet folks actually accused him of trying to gouge them because he wanted to charge! >Another source of a hot list would be to buy lists of paying customers from >market makers. (Of course this would only be ethical if the market-maker >did this with the full knowledge and permission of his customers.) A fabulous way for a market maker to LOSE ALL HIS CUSTOMERS! There isn't enough money in advertising for a MM to make this worthwhile. Targeted lists may sell for $40 to $70 per thousand. Assume a MM had 1,000 customers. Why would he want to risk the goodwill of his customers, with perhaps a lifetime value of $1,000 each to get a measly 4 to 7 cents per name? Our SR newsletter now reaches approx 12,000 subscribers. We neither accept advertising nor will we sell the names. It's just not worth it. According to some posts on my E-Tailer's Digest, e-mail marketing is the "killer app" this year, which I find silly. In May and June , 1999 we did a test market campaign for a client where we sent two e-mailings of approx 140,000 pieces offering gift items for Mother's Day and Father's Day. The results - 35% and 38% **purchased** which was excellent. It was successful enough for the principals to sell the company for $32 million. Well the new company did a similar test one year later and the results was less than 10%. This year I doubt it was 3-5%, if they even did it. There are still many ways to reach the target, but they are much different than what was seen in the past couple of years. Of course, since we need to use them to build Standard Reserve, I am not willing to share them on an open forum. BTW, I always crack up hearing the comparison between "click thrus" and results of a snail mail mailing. Click thrus get a 8-10% return whereas direct mail "only" gets 3-5%. The difference is the DM return is purchases! If you were to compare click thrus to DM, you should really compare how many people opened the DM envelope, which you can't do. FWIW George ______________________________________ George Matyjewicz, President/General Manager Standard Transactions (BVI) Limited World Wide Currency for the World http://www.standardreserve.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
