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Author Topic: e-mail marketing Ramin Hashemi Expert Film Handler Posts: 129 From: Houston TX Registered: Sep 2004 posted 11-10-2005 01:01 PM                     For those who do or have done e-mail marketing, or know about it: Is it effective in small markets? Would you do it in house or by professionals? What fee rate is reasonable? What is the best way to do it? Any suggestions?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 11-10-2005 02:44 PM                        I won't comment on effectiveness, but I will say that any solution must utilize double opt-in. If it doesn't you'll be going straight to hell. Really.  |  IP: Logged Ramin Hashemi Expert Film Handler Posts: 129 From: Houston TX Registered: Sep 2004 posted 11-10-2005 03:23 PM                     I am not familiar with the term double opt-in. can you explain it please. thanks Ramin  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-10-2005 10:41 PM                     People on your spam list should have to specifically ASK to be put on the list TWO TIMES before they are added. Spam is evil and people who send it should burn in hell for all eternity.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 11-11-2005 12:12 AM                        Hey, bio fuel! Yeah, they sign up, you send them ONE email, they click on / follow a link in that email (not reply to the email, bounced emails often end up signed up with some crappy double opt-in systems) to confirm that they want your crap. If you don't receive a reply to that first ONE email, you never send them another. Not even to try and get them to follow the confirmation link again. You've also got to IMMEDIATELY obey unsubscribe requests and never send them mail again (except for possible ONE to say that they've been unsubscribed, but not too ask them to confirm the unsub). There are a lot of companies out there that you can outsource it with. Make sure you do your homework and ask around to make sure they're good and behave appropriately. There are just as many if not more bad companies (that use single opt-in or no opt-in at all, such as opt-out or plain address scraping with no chance to get off the list -- basically spam for a free providers) than good companies out there. Of course you may still end up in hell, but that's the risk you take.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 11-11-2005 09:13 AM                        We use a mass email "list mananger" to send out our weekly movie schedule to about 4000 names on the list. Each person on the list has to go to our web page to sign up for the list, then they recieve a confirmation back in their email to verify the address and notify them that they have been added to the weekly email list. We have found that our email list is the most effective advertising we do... and it costs nothing.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 11-11-2005 03:52 PM                        ewwww! Single opt-in, not good. It only takes one wrong email address signed up by someone to get the sending server blacklisted and, if you've got a good ISP and it happens more than once, your account terminated.  |  IP: Logged Barry Floyd Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1079 From: Lebanon, Tennessee, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 11-12-2005 02:20 AM                        We actually have our local ISP handle the "list manager" thing for our email list. You're right about the "blacklisted server" thing. That happened once or twice this year, but the ISP folks handled all of that and got it resolved.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 11-12-2005 02:51 AM                        [dos@magenta dos]$ host mail.stardustdrivein.com. mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.50 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.51 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.52 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.53 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.54 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.55 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.56 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.57 mail.stardustdrivein.com has address 65.254.254.58 [dos@magenta dos]$ Wow... those mail servers are on the funkiest numbered subnet I've seen in a long time. Cool. ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;stardustdrivein.com. IN NS ;; ANSWER SECTION: stardustdrivein.com. 172234 IN NS ns2.bizland.com. stardustdrivein.com. 172234 IN NS ns1.bizland.com. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns1.bizland.com. 3590 IN A 38.113.1.34 ns2.bizland.com. 3593 IN A 38.113.1.35 I guess bizland is a small land where they can't segregate their name servers though.  |  IP: Logged David Favel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 764 From: Ashburton, New Zealand Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-12-2005 09:27 PM                     Agreed, easy & effective form of advertising. Along with a fax out of the schedule as well. What we found with the fax is that a lot of businesses were hanging them up in the staff room.  |  IP: Logged Jim Ziegler Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 753 From: West Hollywood, CA Registered: Jul 99 posted 11-13-2005 07:46 PM                     We have a weekly showtime newsletter here. To subscribe, you have to sign up either at the theatre, or with a double opt-in on the website. I make it up on Thursday night.. Doesn't take too long after you have the tech in place.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 11-14-2005 03:42 PM                        Is anyone paying for having their showtimes sent via "newsletters" containing not only showtimes, but box office results, trivia questions, etc.? I see a lot of these that are just cookie-cutter implementations done by the same company. The basic format and even the trivia questions are the same for each theater chain, with small "personalizations" done, ostensibly to make the theater feel like they are putting their own stamp on it. I've heard rates of anywhere between $50 - $100 per week for an 8 or 10 screen location. Perhaps these E-Mails are a more successful advertising medium than I give them credit for, but you have to get a lot of new customers each and every week to justify the weekly expense. Is this working out for anyone? Every time I've pressed for actual results, the answer is vague at best. Please correct my math if I make a mistake here: Theater X pays $50 per week to have their showtimes E-Mailed with cutesy trivia questions and the theater's logo attached. Average admission price is $5, with an average net of $1 after the studio takes their cut. Assuming no additional profit as a result of concession sales, you would need to attract 50 new customers the first week, then 50 new customers the week after that, etc. to pay for the $50 per week that is being paid for the newsletter. By the end of just four weeks, the E-Mail newsletter will have had to generate at least 200 new customers just to pay for the newsletter. I would be interested in hearing from someone who is paying for an E-Mail newsletter, and how much business they're getting as a result of it. I think $50 per week for a 10-screen theater seems a little pricey. Maybe in a large market, where you can attract thousands of people to the E-Mail list, it pays off... Personally, I think $50 per month would be more reasonable.  |  IP: Logged

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