Direct mail for small businesses

Being carried away recently by reading business literature, I noticed that many authors recommend using direct mailing lists to promote their product. As the owner of two online stores, I decided it was time to increase sales, and began to look for a suitable solution. And he soon found out that you can do mailings yourself, using the program, or through mailing services. Seeing that all of these services have a subscription system, and you have to pay every month, I decided to try the programs first.

And, naturally, I’m an ardent hater of spam (and who loves him?), And therefore, before starting, I tried to fulfill the requirements that Google considers necessary for “not spam”:

• Affiliation of persons (I bought something on my site, I signed up for it myself),
• Possibility to unsubscribe (3 ways in the whole letter),
• Contact by name (since these are customers of my online store, I know all the names).

Programs for direct mailing.

MaxBulk Mailer

Since I am the proud owner of Mac, I decided to start looking for a program specifically for Mac OS. The second wish was the presence of the Russian language. After the searches, the program (which works on Windows) MaxBulk Mailer was found , enthusiastic user reviews were attached to it. Already joyfully rubbing my hands, I downloaded the program, and loaded into it 5 addresses (all mine) to test. All the programs that I downloaded, I will tell you a secret, boasted that they had built-in SMTP servers, and they did not need anything. But, of course, nothing worked, I had to enter the address smtp.yandex.ru for testing.

Testing was successful. All letters were received, and I already decided that I was ready to spend my hard-earned money, but there were very few opportunities for “beautiful” writing letters - everything was very primitive and ugly. Having accessed the HTML code, I decided to insert a random beautiful template found on the Internet. Everything blurred and parted. Googled the problem - it turns out that all styles should be written for letters inside the tags, otherwise some (for example, Gmail) will not display beautifully. And besides, smtp from Yandex stopped working, and I decided to continue the search.

Advantages of the program:

• Low cost, 49 euros pay off very quickly
• Very easy to figure out
• SMTP from Gmail and Yandex work

Cons of the program:

• No beautiful chips and templates included
• Gmail and Yandex SMTP work, but not for long. Quickly banyat

ePochta

The second candidate was ePochta. I was recommended by one good friend, whose letters I regularly read. The program immediately left a good impression (except that I had to run Windows for it), and without thinking twice, I bought it (1700 rubles - 20% discount, found on the request “ePochta coupon”). All restrictions were removed immediately, I downloaded the mailing list (my clients from one of the stores) and prepared a letter. There are templates in the kit, but they are too scary, I had to look for my own. Now, when a completely finished letter flew to 1000 addresses (compiled, by the way, correctly, using the "Unsubscribe" links and contacting% username%), problems began. As it turned out by the search method, Yandex does not allow sending more than 125 letters per day. And I managed to send 400, by the way. No, I used delays (1 letter per minute) and 1 stream, but nothing helped. I tried Gmail, and realized that the list to whom I had already sent the letter did not survive. The program also began to slow down and crash. I decided that I would not send two identical letters to my clients, since I was afraid to lose them, so I abandoned this business.

Lyrical digression

As you might have guessed, 400 letters still went. I somehow forgot about it, but suddenly sales intensified. Yes, not just intensified, they doubled. Which, accordingly, beat off all the costs almost tenfold, so I did not despair, and with renewed vigor began to search for something more suitable. It's time for Web 2.0.

Online Services

First of all, you had to find them. Search in Habrahabr and other sources of adequate information gave me MailChimp . There are no others. At first I decided to search on Google, but in the first place there were continuous over-rolled up inconvenient services from the past (“from the past” - this means that you won’t look without tears). The second source of information was ... my own box. There were so many mailing lists in it that there was plenty to choose from (thanks to Gmail, you can see through which service the message was sent). And then I came across Mad Mimi . Well, in order.

Mailchimp

As you might guess, I somehow did not grow together with this service. Why? Well, besides the fact that some monkey was constantly calling me there, he is dear. As much as 30 dollars a month. But for this green money (by the way, there is no PayPal in payment, or I was looking badly) you will get a bunch of opportunities. No, the whole car of opportunities, with a small trolley in addition. Do you think this is a plus? No, that's a minus. There are so many things that I did not have the patience to compose my letter and send myself for testing. Although many of the companies that send me letters use this service (and they send me mailings mainly from bookstores), I would not recommend it. Why? I found out about Mad Mimi.

Pros:

• Function for every taste and color

Minuses

• English interface
• 30 dollars a month
• God, how incomprehensible everything is!

Mad mimi

The easiest mailing service I have ever tried. Like two bytes about a jamb, here’s a button for you, click on it, here’s your newsletter (already very beautiful and cool), just add water (or text), here’s the send button. I did it right away, sent myself a test letter, and was stunned - you can’t say otherwise. Everything turned out the first time exactly as I intended. Only the text was in English below, which "You can unsubscribe by clicking here ..." and so on. Then I began my acquaintance with technical support, asked the question - where is the Russian language? A nice man named Mark answered me right away, saying that there were no Russian users yet, and if I could help, he would send me a file that needs to be Russified. Why not? Well, I helped, my next newsletter was already in Russian, I personally translated (it seems to have worked out quite well). For testing, I sent 100 letters to my customers, now another store (why 100? This is the limited free functionality of the service). He waited 24 hours, and realized that he was not mistaken. Double increase in sales, no one unsubscribed. There was no PayPal in the form of payment, but on a “call” to Mark he sent me a request for mail, I am already a paid user. 2500 addresses and incredible (this means there are a lot of them, and it’s easy to use) capabilities for tracking links, unsubscribes (two of the 1280 addresses still unsubscribed) and the validity of addresses. As well as a convenient form of subscription for the site. no one unsubscribed. There was no PayPal in the form of payment, but on a “call” to Mark he sent me a request for mail, I am already a paid user. 2500 addresses and incredible (this means there are a lot of them, and it’s easy to use) capabilities for tracking links, unsubscribes (two of the 1280 addresses still unsubscribed) and the validity of addresses. As well as a convenient form of subscription for the site. no one unsubscribed. There was no PayPal in the form of payment, but on a “call” to Mark he sent me a request for mail, I am already a paid user. 2500 addresses and incredible (this means there are a lot of them, and it’s easy to use) capabilities for tracking links, unsubscribes (two of the 1280 addresses still unsubscribed) and the validity of addresses. As well as a convenient form of subscription for the site.

Pros:

• Easy and affordable, anyone will understand
• Almost free, considering what returns
• Now - also in Russian
• Responsive tech support (as many as three people helped me)
• Import contacts from Gmail and MailChimp in the near future

Minuses:

• The interface is in English, but it does not interfere, everything is logical there
• Still, $ 14 a month

Lyrics

The second newsletter gave me a threefold increase in sales. Well, what can I say, I checked, indeed, direct mails work.

The main thing is to work very well on the text, it should not contain errors, crooked links. We have only one chance to leave a first impression. Use the names of your customers. Write rarely, but accurately (for example, once a week, before the new year or March 8). I called for discounts, promotions, offers. I drew a very beautiful hat (the design for me was Mad Mimi). Response - out of 100 addresses - 10 are broken. 10 - still have not looked. 80 received and looked. 60 - clicked. Sales +8 units from the average. That is 10% success from clicks.

For the year of Internet entrepreneurship, I have a couple of other tricks that will help increase sales, about them - in the next series.
And be sure to read the topic about the usability of online stores , it’s great there about direct marketing.

PS: Thanks to ITdirector for the help.