New bulk email perspective:

Bulk email marketing is not all about acquiring new customers through the email marketing channel. Yes, this is important part but one of the most profitable ways to utilize bulk email is in your communication with an existing email database of your current clients.

Using bulk email to communicate to your current clients is the most cost effective way to announce new products or service updates, newsletters and price changes.

Compare the cost of bulk email to traditional ways of mass commuication with your current clients and you will see major cost that you can save.

The following terms and defination for email marketing that you will come across in dealing with bulk email industry:

 

Audience; The group of people that an email promotion or campaign targets. For example, an email marketer promoting jewelry site might select and target a list of people who have expressed an interest in buying diamonds online. That list would contain the audience.

 

Clickable text; The links within an email message that become hyperlinks, meaning that they are executed when clicked on and take people directly to a Web site or page. Many text only email programs will convert plain text to clickable text when they see http:// in the body of the message.

 

Click; The opportunity for a visitor to be transferred to a location by clicking on an ad, as recorded by the server.

 

Click-through rate; the percentage of people receiving an e-mail who will click on a URL embedded in the message to reach a specific Web page.

 

Compiled list; This is a list of email addresses that has been gathered by a means other than response to a previous email message. For example, these email addresses can be part of a large database, and can typically be segmented by demographic information. A compiled list could consist of a list of people who have Social Security numbers beginning with the number 2423. A complied email list may not be one to promote to because the addresses within it are collected by methods such as consumer warranty cards, purchase transactions, surveys, etc. - hence, the people have not "opted in" to receive promotions by email. They have simply submitted their email addresses to register for something else altogether.

 

Conversion; The number or percentage of recipients that complete a promotion's ultimate goal. Conversions could include the number of leads garnered from a lead generation, or the number of actual sales derived from a promotional sales campaign. This is the final number and generally the most important measurement of a campaigns success. A conversion percentage or rate can refer to the percentage of people that clicked on the promotion or the percentage of all of the people that received the initial promotion.

 

Cookie; A file on your computer that records information where you have been on the World Wide Web. The browser stores this information, which allows a site to remember the browser in future transactions or requests. Since the Web's protocol has no way to remember requests, cookies read and record a user's browser type and IP address, and store this information on the user's own computer. The cookie can be read only by a server in the domain that stored it. Visitors can accept or deny cookies by changing a setting in their browser preferences.

 

CPC; cost per click.

 

CPL; cost per lead.

 

CPM; CPM is the cost per thousand for a particular site. A website that charges $15,000 per banner guarantees 6000,000 impressions has a CPM of $25 ($15,000 divided by 600).

 

CPT; cost per transaction.

 

CPTM; cost per targeted thousand impressions.

 

CPU (central processing unit); The central processing unit I the main "brain" of the computer, where the information is processed and calculations are done.

 

Cross-selling; when a company develops offers and promotions for its house list, and those offers are for other products that company offers, it is called cross-selling.

 

Database marketing; The discipline of enhancing a house email list and promoting it, using a variety of database-related tools. For example, an email marketer can use database marketing techniques to communicate with selected segments within its house list of customer email address, such as those with certain incomes and prior purchase histories.

 

Direct response; The school of advertising that says, "The Internet is an interactive medium. If the consumer interacts with our marketing efforts, we've done our job." Unfortunately for agencies, there's nowhere to hide with interactive campaigns, as they produce precise success or failure measurements.

 

Domain; Part of the DNS (domain naming system) name that specific details about the host. A domain is the main subdivision of Internet addresses, the last three letters after the final dot, and it tells you what kind of organization you are dealing with. There aresix top level domains widely used in the U.S. : .com (commercial), .edu (education), .et (network operations), .gov ( U.S. government), .mil ( U.S. military), .org (organization). Other, two-letter domains represent countries, thus, .uk for the United Kingdom , and so on.

 

Domain consolidation level; Data reflect the consolidation of multiple domain names and/or URLs associated with the main site.

 

Download; Copying information or files from a server or another source to a computer or network.

 

GIF (graphic interchange format); GIF is a graphics format that can be displayed on almost all Web browsers. It is a common compression format used for transferring graphic files between different computers. Most of the "pictures" you see online are GIF files. They display in 256 colors and have a built-in compression. GIF images are the most common form of banner creative.

 

HTML (hypertext markup language); Is a coding language used to make hypertext documents for use on the Web. HTML resembles old-fashioned typesetting code, where a block of text is surrounded by codes that indicate ho wit should appear. HTML allows text to be "linked" to another file on the Internet.

 

HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol); A standard method of publishing information as hypertext in HTML format on the Internet, HTTP is he format of the World Wide Web. When a browser sees "HTTP" as the beginning of an address, it knows that it is viewing a WWW page.

 

HTTPS; HTTP with SSL (secure socket layer) encryption for security.

 

Hyperlink; this is the clickable link in text or graphics on a Web page that takes you to another place on the same page, another page, or whole other site. It is the single most powerful and important function of online communications. Hyperlinks are revolutionizing he way the world gets information.

 

Hypertext; electronic documents that present information that can be read by following many different directions through links, rather than just read linearly like printed text.

 

Internet; URL can be pronounced "you-are-ell" or "earl." It is how Web pages, FTPs, gophers, newsgroups, and even some e-mail boxes are located.

 

JPEG (joint photographic experts group); JPEG is a graphics format newer than GIF that displays photographs and graphic images with millions of colors. It also compresses well and is easy to download. Unfortunately, not many browsers currently support it, so don't use it for your logo.

 

Keyword; A word or phrase to focus an online search.

 

Link; An electronic connection between two websites (also called hotlink). When an item on one Web page is clicked on, the user is transferred to another page or another area on the same page.

 

Opt in; To agree to receive promotional e-mails when registering on a particular website from the site owner and other companies to whom he or she may rent your e-mail address to.

 

Opt out; To request that an e-list owner take your name off of the list or at least make sure you are not sent any promotional e-mails.

 

Paid Customer or Paid Campaign; When a customer pays for an offer online.

 

Pull; This term refers to marketing media that draws a target audience in, such as a Web site or television.

 

Push; This term refers to marketing medias, such as email, that sends messages to the target audience.

 

ROI; Return on Investment. Dividing the profit from a campaign by the cost of mou nti ng that campaign. Used as a measurement of a campaign's success.

 

Spam; the use of mailing lists to blanket Usenet groups or private e-mail boxes with indiscrimination, unsolicited messages of a promotional nature. Very bad netiquette. Even worse, it's bad business. The future of marketing online is about customizing products and information for individual users. Anyone who tries to use old mass-market techniques in the new media environment is bound to fail.

 

Targeted marketing; Banners or other promotions aimed, on the basis of demographic analysis, at one specific subsection of the market.

 

URL (uniform resource locator); An HTTP address used by the World Wide Web to specify a certain site. This is the unique identifier, or address, of a Web page on the

 

Viral marketing; any advertising that propagates itself. When Hotmail users send e-mail, they unwittingly infect the recipient with the tagline at the bottom of the message.