Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

116 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
E-mail Discussion Groups
Discussion groups about virtually every subject exist on the Internet, so
chances are one or more of them relate to your product or service. Some
of these groups allow free or paid “advertising” or sponsorships by
appending some copy about your company, product, or service to discussion
text. It must be done appropriately, in the proper context, and
always with permission—but it does present you with another way of
reaching a very targeted audience via e-mail.
A company called Keyva Technologies (www.keyva.com) had an
interesting experience with e-mail discussion groups, according to an
April 2001 report in B2B Marketing Biz (www.b2bmarketingbiz.com).
The company wanted to target small and medium-sized ISPs and decided
to use e-mail discussion groups instead of e-mails because they
felt this audience would respond poorly to opt-in e-mails. The company’s
strategy was to participate in e-mail discussion groups and only send
notes when a useful contribution could be made to a technical discussion.
It’s only when an ISP responds to Jack Permison, Keyva’s president,
that he gets a return e-mail with sales information. The results?
Keyva has acquired about 75% of its customers via e-mail discussion
groups, says Permison.
Making E-mail Work Harder
New technologies are being introduced regularly to make e-mail work
harder. There are products and services available to enhance your ability
to personalize and customize e-mail, and e-mail service bureaus who
can provide you with start-to-finish services, including building and
managing your own e-mail list.
Basically, you can decide to outsource your e-mail or manage e-mail
lists and programs in-house. Two of the better known firms in the
outsourced e-mail business are MessageMedia (www.messagemedia.com),
which in mid-2001 was acquired by the online advertising firm
DoubleClick, and Digital Impact (www.digitalimpact.com).
A number of products and services, from simple to extremely sophisticated,
are available if you want to handle e-mail yourself. Interact, from
Responsys (www.responsys.com), is one of the more sophisticated systems.
Interact provides support for dynamic personalization so that marketers
can personalize messages based on customer contact and profile