I’ve started marketing articlemap.com by emailing personal invitations to authors. I have benefitted much from reading article tips and information from many either on their site or from their newsletter.
Does email marketing work? I haven’t tried mass emailing as I’m not sure if the response rate will be good. Also, I don’t wish to be known as a spammer.
But Yes….Those that I’ve personally written to, response has been encouraging. While personal email invitation strategies are slow and time-consuming, they are more sincere and I believe, will give a better response rate in the end.
Of course, to be more productive in this manual process, it will be best to target those that have more than 10 articles in their portfolio.
I guess personal email invitation strategy can be applied to any other online businesses as well. You have to seperate yourself away from the pack. Your email must stand out. It must not appear just like another mass email. Chances are your email is likely to be opened and if your sincerity shows through, the click through and hence sign up rate will be high.