E-Marketing Through Mailing Lists and NewsgroupsOnline communities (mailing list discussion groups, newsgroups): THE most effective online marketing tool. As I mentioned last month, outside the World Wide Web, blatant commercialism is a serious no-no in the strange new culture of the Internet. Yet, millions of dollars changes hands over (or because of) the Internet every single month—and much of this goes not through the crassly commercial World Wide Web but through the one-to-one contact of e-mail. Internet mailing lists and newsgroups form "virtual communities, where the watchwords are helping others, sharing information, and maintaining a climate that feels more like a college seminar than a shopping mall. Let's start with the difference between mailing lists and newsgroups. the content is similar: messages written by the subscribers, categorized by topic. But the format and tools they require are different. A mailing list comes into your e-mail box, either as a digest of all the messages, or as a stream of individual messages. You bring it from your mail server into your own computer, just like any other mail message. If you get your mailing lists in digest form, you can even print the whole thing out and give your eyes a rest by reading it * away * from your computer. A newsgroup lives on a server someplace else. It never comes to your computer; you go and visit it with a newsgroup reader. This means you read it all online, but can skip threads that don't interest you. On the negative side, you may miss messages if you don't visit often enough. Mailing lists and newsgroups can either be moderated or unmoderated. This means either someone controls and approves all messages before they're posted to the whole group, or any message goes in from anyone. Unfortunately, many of the unmoderated groups have become so full of junk mail that they've lost their original purpose. There are, of course, exceptions: the very best list I subscribe to is unmoderated, but the "signal to noise ratio" remains high. There will be three kinds of groups you may want to participate in: those that reach your customers; those where you can learn and develop professionally; and those wonderful ones where you can do both. Your very best groups will be those where you can not only learn, but contribute, and where the participants will benefit from your products and services. Typically, it's a good idea to read without participating for a week or two, to get a flavor of the group. Once you've decided the group suits your purpose, the custom in many groups is to write a brief introduction. Then begin to respond to queries, where you have an answer that will move the questioner forward. After a few weeks of providing useful answers, you will begin to build credibility. Of course, every one of your postings will have a short 4 or 5-line business card at the end, mentioning what you provide and giving contact info (refer to last month's column for more on these "sigs"). Does this work? On my favorite list, I've not only gained enormous amounts of knowledge that makes me better, more efficient, and more profitable at what I do, but I've also secured thousands of dollars worth of customers for both my writing services and my books. How do you find these groups? Visit a Web-based search engine: lizst.com for mailing lists, and dejanews.com for newsgroups. Try a few at a time, as the volume on a busy list can be overwhelming. Move in and out of groups as makes sense for your particular product and service mix. Thank you reading this back issue of Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Marketing Tips, published every month since May, 1997; please click here to view the complete archives, grouped by subject. Shel is an internationally known copywriter and marketing consultant, author of Grassroots Marketing Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and several other books, and creator of the Frugal Marketing web site. Please click here to contact Shel.
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