Putting Your Mailing List to Good Use

In the good old days of the Internet, people set up mailing lists simply because they wanted to share knowledge, for the good of all mankind. Nowadays however, we're told that everything should have a clear goal and a purpose. In other words, it should be able to generate money. Many mailing lists sell advertising, and in fact this has emerged as a very good value for advertisers who want to reach a very tightly-targeted market at low cost.

Adding ads to an announcement list is easy - just type in the text. For a discussion list, the mailing list software can be set up to include a blurb at the end of every message, and this can contain an ad (as mentioned above, it should also contain unsubscribe instructions and the email address of the list admin). Since a discussion list may generate lots of messages every day, it can be an even better deal for an advertiser than an announcement list. However, it's hard to convince advertisers of this fact, since there's no way to predict exactly how many times the message will be seen.

Advertisers think in terms of "CPM" (Cost per Thousand Ad Views [or "impressions"]). Ads on lists are usually sold for a fixed, round price per mailing or per month, but potential advertisers will divide that figure by the number of list members to see how good a deal it is. The price you can command depends on the subject matter of the list, and ranges from nothing to CPMs of 100 dollars or even more.

Aside from selling advertising on the list itself, the goal of many mailing lists is to generate traffic to a Web site, and they are quite effective for this purpose. The question of whether your list exists for its own sake or as a come-on for your Web site influences what kind of content you put on the list (of course a list can also have both goals).

If you want people to enjoy the list for its own sake, pack it with useful content. Dispense wisdom that folks can't get elsewhere, and that will make them want to stay subscribed. For an announcement list, it's better to send out fatter messages less often. Resist the temptation to include too much advertising, and never put an ad at the beginning of a message - people will assume it's spam. As our friends at the search engines will tell you, a resource that has links to lots of other resources will attract more visitors than will straight content. Many mailing lists consist of nothing but links. If the list itself is the point of the exercise, then there's no reason not to include links to whatever appropriate resources you can find. If you simply keep an eye out for new links of interest to your audience, you can make up quite a useful little weekly or monthly list with comparatively little effort.

If the point of your list is to generate traffic to your site, you should approach things a little differently. The name of the game is to feature scads of links to your own site, and few or none to other sites. Instead of including self-sufficient content, include only "teasers," or blurbs that whet the reader's appetite for more info. For example, instead of a couple of paragraphs announcing that your new widget can handle twice as much widgetry as the previous model, include just a short blurb that says something like "Would you like to be able to process twice as many widget-units in the same amount of time? Now you can! Click on over to the site to find out how."

As with a banner ad, the name of the game is enticing people to click, and marketing types study psychology to figure out ways to push peoples' buttons (or vice versa). People are suckers for questions, and of course for "special deals." Also, people are more likely to click if it sounds like they will "get" something. You and I know that all they're going to receive is information, but make it sound as if they're going to "get" some tangible benefit (a free goodie, a chance to win something, a sneak peek at something new, etc.).

A discussion list can also be a good traffic-generator. When someone asks a question on one of our Web Developer's Journal discussion lists, I don't have time to write out an answer for them, but I do have time to give them a link to an article on our Web site where the answer might be found. Monitoring a discussion list is also an excellent way to get ideas for new content. If you see lots of people asking about a certain topic (especially if they aren't getting many good answers), then that topic is a good candidate for a new article. In fact, sometimes list members post answers that are so well-written that they can serve as articles themselves. Of course, you must get the writer's permission to do this.

As mentioned above, your mailing list software can be set up to include a blurb of text at the end of each list message, and this blurb can be used to tout your site. Change the blurbs often, keep them short, and keep them relevant. If the blurb includes paid advertising, keep it very short. Advertisers will try to talk you into making them as long as they can get away with. Gently remind them that yours is not an "opt-in" spam list, but a valuable resource which is read by wealthy scuba divers (or whatever), and that if it begins to resemble spam, the readers will all disappear in a cloud of bubbles.

List Administration
Email-based Public Relations, or Mailing Lists for Web Sites
Conclusion