Make promotional emails. How to send ads automatically. Store SMS consent

Welcome to Financial Genius! Today I would like to talk about how effective Internet mailing commercial offers and advertising Is it worth doing it and investing some money in it. I already wrote, now I want to consider one of the options for its delivery to potential customers.

Recently, I just come across a huge number of companies offering the services of sending out commercial offers for e-mail. Moreover, in a variety of ways: someone offers to send out an offer to everyone in a row, someone offers to select a certain category of recipients, someone sells databases of e-mail addresses by category, someone sells programs for automatic mailing ... Let's think, how effective is Internet mailing, is it worth using such services or doing it yourself?

I will say right away: my opinion here will be negative. I don't think that mass mailing of advertising on the Internet, and even more so - mailing of commercial offers, can give any positive result. But it can do a lot of harm. Now I will try to substantiate all this, based on the statements that are most often used by people and companies that provide such services. Let's call them "myths about Internet mailing".

Myths about online mailing.

Myth 1. Thanks to the Internet newsletter, thousands/tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands of potential customers will learn about you. Some, of course, will only find out in a negative way, and therefore will never do business with you again. Well, what opinion can you form about a company that sends spam? Is it positive? But in general, absolutely not all recipients of the Internet mailing list will know about you, since for the vast majority the letter will immediately go to spam, many others will delete it without even reading it. In different cases, Internet mailings of advertising are read from hundredths to a few percent of the total number of recipients.

Myth 2. Internet distribution of commercial offers will convey information directly to a potential client. This is claimed by people who have certain thematic databases of subscribers (for example, companies of different profiles, etc.). Let's start with the fact that most often in any company, the mail on the corporate e-mail is checked by the secretary or someone else, but not the head. If the letter is unaddressed, that is, it will be clear that this is a mass Internet mailing, most likely, the employee will simply delete it, because if he sends spam to his manager, he will receive a stick from him. Even if the letter ends up in the mail to the immediate supervisor - the person who makes the decisions, think for yourself: does he really have nothing better to do than read advertising mailings? In the vast majority of cases, this will only anger him and form an extremely negative impression of the advertiser.

Free advertising on the Internet does not mean ineffective. Expenses for large-scale marketing projects can reach five or even six figures. But this applies only to serious business sharks. To promote a small project of your own, you can also use free methods of advertising on the Internet. Perhaps in the future, with proper promotion, advertising costs will no longer frighten with their numbers.

Types of advertisements

Before picking up suitable way advertising, you need to decide what kind of ad it will be. The standard classification of advertisements contains only two points:

• Commercial advertising is the advertising of goods or services for the purpose of selling them and, as a result, making a profit. Today commercial advertising not something that pushes a person to buy. It literally dictates how one should live, what goods to buy, what to wear, etc. Unlike private ads, commercial advertising must be correctly designed, contain original "selling" text, and its distribution must cover the maximum possible areas of the Internet. -spaces.
• Private announcements are announcements of ordinary people who are not associated with commercial activities. Private listings can serve many purposes, such as the sale of private property or the search for a job. There are no special requirements for private advertisements. However, if a person has some professional marketing skills, then it will be much easier for him to achieve the goal that he pursues by placing his ad on the network.

Advertising methods

To place your ad on the Internet for free, you need to really imagine how it will look like. How the advertisement is presented to users depends on how many people will be interested in it. Advertisements are published in three types:

• graphic;
• text;
• mixed.

Each site independently establishes which can be placed in it. But, even taking into account the fact that the selling text will be written by a professional in their field, without visual perception of information, the ad may be ineffective.

In addition, there are also ways to advertise. There are three ways to post an ad.

• - a kind of "mystery". If to speak in simple words, a teaser is an image that should intrigue the Internet user. It can be accompanied by no less intriguing text with headings such as: "SHOCK!", "Did you know that ...", etc.
• Graphic advertising images on website pages are banners. can be seen not only on the net, but also on the streets of the city. However, web banners are much cheaper.
• The last way to advertise is contextual advertising. Contextual advertising is graphic or text ads that are published either on the search results pages or on the pages of some web resources. Since such ads are part of the pages, that is, they are placed in their context, the name of this method of advertising on the network also appeared.

Where can I advertise for free?

Free classifieds boards have long moved from real life to the Internet space. Moreover, they are very popular among the population. If earlier, when searching for the right thing or service, users drove the corresponding query into the search engine, now many have a “favorite” site that can provide everything you need in one key phrase. The ranking of the most popular free classifieds boards includes:

• Avito.
• From hand to hand.
• Molotok.ru.
• Tiu.ru.

Free classifieds boards are suitable for both commercial and private use. An advertisement for an online store and an advertisement for the sale of private property will work equally well there. But since these advertising platforms are not only frequently visited, but also free, they are simply inundated with spam. Therefore, in order to use the free classifieds boards with benefit, you should not impose and praise the offered goods or services very much.

All free classifieds boards have a list paid services. No matter how profitable the offers may seem, they should be avoided. It is best to submit as many advertisements as possible on all thematic and general sites. Most of the time will take registration on various resources. Moreover, for greater efficiency, it is not necessary to create an advertising post according to a template on all sites. Several ad options allow you to choose the most effective one.

Free advertising in Yandex and Google

Contextual advertising in Yandex.Direct or Google Adwards is not a cheap pleasure. For newcomers to the business, this method of advertising is clearly not affordable. But there is one option that will help you attract customers with these popular search engines.

To give information about your company for free, you can use Yandex and Google maps. It's no secret that the placement of the address, links to the company on the map is free of charge.

Yes, this is a little different from the classic concept of "advertising". But if the user searches for something in the surrounding area, he will see the address of the company and a link to its official website, which may attract his attention.

Social media

Social networks are a great platform not only for advertising, but also for business in general. If a novice businessman does not have money to create a website for an online store, then social networks may well replace it. You can advertise a business in social networks either using a personal page or using a special group, but for this you will have to create it.

group or communities in social network is a thematic space where users who are interested in the proposed topic gather. This means that the community should not be filled solely with ads or product shots. To attract customers in the group, you need to post interesting information that is directly related to the goods or services offered. Posts with the headings “Promotion”, “Competition” or “Discount for repost” will also be relevant. This will contribute not only to advertising products, but also to promote the community.

The advertisement on the page must be pinned.

Advertising on the forums

I would like to note right away that the forum owners have a negative attitude towards advertisers. Therefore, aggressively advertising your services there will not work. An advertising post or comment will be deleted after a few minutes, and the profile will be completely blocked. To use this method of advertising, you need to act more cunningly.

• Find several popular thematic forums and register there under the guise of an ordinary user.
• Actively participate in discussions, create non-advertising topics, comment on the questions of "formuchans".
• After some time, which is required to create a positive reputation, begin to unobtrusively advertise goods or services.

Most often, users begin to ask for advice on their own if they see the interlocutor's expertise in a matter of interest. However, even in private messages you should not be zealous. Advertise a product or service should be little by little and only to users who are familiar from communication. Then the site administration will not have any suspicions and, accordingly, the account will not be blocked.

Summing up, we can say that free advertising online is real. The list of available advertising platforms provides unlimited opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs to grow their business. The main thing is not to spare time. And then all efforts will surely give a positive result.

Not really

How to send ads automatically - we work with free message boards. Today, making money on the Internet is not difficult at all. There was even such a thing as network marketing - this is the same marketing, only on the Internet, that is, people try to declare their business there and promote their products, finding clients and partners along the way ...

For this kind of promotion, there are a lot of tools, which include bulletin boards.
Many visitors to such sites create their own ads there or search for something. Often in ads on such boards you can find a link to a mini-site where you can subscribe to the seller's mailing list.

This is what distinguishes bulletin boards from mailings that are made by e-mail, because in the second case, mailings are made to all addresses that are in the subscriber database. Another important distinguishing feature bulletin boards is their availability, since they are absolutely free.

So in order to submit your ad, the user does not have to use contextual advertising or the same mailing lists. But do not forget that advertising is still the engine of trade. So you should not deny it if you still want to promote your business.

As for free message boards, there are a few simple rules to keep in mind: draw attention with catchy headlines (after all, you are going to attract clients and partners, right?), use beautiful avatars, because they are greeted by clothes, and be sure to include a link to your mini-site (so it will be visited by more visitors).

Advertising should be carefully thought out - after all, on the bulletin boards there is a clear division of the latter into categories, and if you sell household appliances, then in the "refrigerators" section you should not also advertise washing machines.

Also, constantly update the information in your ads so that it is relevant to your offers, and also try to change the names so that they do not “wash” your eyes. regular customers and attracted new ones all the time - after all, this is the key to a stable income!

Let's get back to the bulletin boards themselves. There ads can be placed both manually and automatically. Placing ads manually with a large amount of work is rather impractical, so let's consider automatic ad placement, which is carried out using a special software(Such programs are easy to find on the Internet).

You need to use these programs quite often - almost every day - if you want your ads to be at the very top of the list all the time, because every day a lot of new ads are added to such sites, and they will gradually crowd out yours from the first positions.

What programs should be used? Consider one of the most popular - it is called Add2Board. It's not free, and yet it's worth every dollar (or cent) you spend on it. True, using it you still will not be able to avoid manual input information, since this program recognizes only about 70% of all captchas.

However, not all ad sites on the Internet require captcha input, which means that this program will cope with automatic mailing if not "excellent", then certainly "good".

So, in front of you is only the visible part of the iceberg. network marketing. Next, you yourself must work and make efforts in order to promote your business! And rest assured, you will succeed, you just have to try ...

• for a company — from 100,000 rubles to 500,000 rubles;
• CEO or individual entrepreneur— from 4,000 rubles to 20,000 rubles.

How a company sends SMS is monitored by the Antimonopoly Service, or FAS for short. Formally, the service has the right to fine for each illegal SMS. The company sent one hundred SMS with violations, a fine of fifty million rubles.

The Antimonopoly Service fines not just like that, but on complaints. Any dissatisfied recipient can file a complaint. It happens that the service begins proceedings on its own initiative.

The companies hope that the antimonopolists will not find out about illegal SMS, so there will be no fine. There is a chance, but not to say that it is big.

The antimonopoly service teaches to complain. To do this, the service has a memo on how to complain correctly, and a questionnaire on the site. Read, fill out, press the button, and the complaint is ready. Five minutes is enough for the client to leave a complaint.

In addition to the site of the antimonopoly service, there is an application "Rosspam". We don't know exactly how well it works, but we heard reviews that everything is in order. The scheme is as follows: register, write down a complaint, press a button, and the service will find out about the SMS. No need to go to the site, you can complain from the phone.

It doesn't matter if this application works or if someone creates a new one. All the same, antimonopolists have enough opportunities to find out about violations.

If the company operates in small and medium-sized businesses and this is the first violation, it is possible that the service will issue a warning instead of a fine. Better not count on favors.

Who gets fined

The Antimonopoly Service said in a letter who is considered an advertising distributor:

• “The advertiser is a person who has performed certain actions to bring advertising to the consumer.
• The communication service provider that provided the connection to the telecommunications network is not an advertising distributor.

Despite the letter, the antimonopoly service fines the operators. For example, Beeline received a fine of three hundred thousand rubles for SMS advertising a fitness club, the antimonopoly service talks about this on its website.

• customer company;
• an intermediary who organized the SMS distribution;
• the owner of the phone number from which the SMS was sent;
• mobile operator.

You can see how the antimonopoly service evaluates the complaint, who is fined and for what amount, on the website:

What is FAS fined for?

Tatyana Nikitina, head of the advertising control service, talks about illegal SMS. Quote from her interview:

• — What type of violations is the most “popular” now?
• - If we talk about percentages, then this is advertising on telecommunication networks. Violation, which has been one of the first lines for the last three years. First of all, those unwanted SMS, which we receive on the phone. I think that you, too, sometimes receive strange messages on your phone from companies that you never even knew existed.

What can not be written is a big topic, and we will talk about it in another article. In short, you can not offend feelings, deceive, advertise without certificates and licenses, induce to the wrong way of life or breaking the law.

Consent to SMS

You can not send SMS without the consent of the recipient. And it does not matter how much and how often to send: the company violates the law, even if it sent one SMS to one person.

Consent - an action that shows: I, such and such, agree to SMS with advertising from a particular company.

The law does not require the form of consent, you can get it in any way. Most often, companies are asked to tick the form for a discount card or on the website during registration.

Ozone example. Ozon, upon registration, asks for consent to send messages. What are these messages, tells on a separate page. It's legal, albeit tricky:

There are companies that consider registration on the site or other action as consent. This is mistake. Not considered consent:

• if the client left the phone when ordering. For example, a client gave a coat to a dry cleaner and left a number for the dry cleaner to send an SMS when the coat is ready;
• published a phone number in social networks, an announcement on Avito, documents for government agencies;
• subscribed to the company's news, which should come by e-mail;
• registered on the site or signed a questionnaire for a discount card.

Not every phrase counts as an agreement. Consent must be literally to receive advertising and SMS. Common words - messages, information, mailing - do not fit. In litigation, the antitrust service may decide that the company has received consent for something else, and not for advertising.

Phrases don't fit

fit

I agree to be informed about the news

Ready to receive information about the company

With the consent of the problem. If the client went to the site or to the store, you can ask for permission to send SMS. The question is what to do if this is a potential client.

A fitness club has opened. In his area - residential buildings and centers with offices. It would be nice to tell residents and employees about the club. But getting permission for SMS before mailing does not work, because potential clients don't know about the club yet.

If you can't get consent because the client didn't contact the company, you can cheat. Instead of sending ads, let the company send the first SMS with permission to advertise:

Hello! This is the Tasty Breakfast cafe, we work close to you. We can have breakfast from seven in the morning. If you are interested in learning about discounts, please send "Agree" in response.

An SMS with a question is still a violation of the law, and there are no guarantees that the antimonopoly service will not fine, but this SMS can be explained. Ordinary people work in the service, they understand that the company needs to attract customers. Therefore, if you break the law, then at least so.

Client identification

According to the law, consent must be given by the person who will receive the SMS. Masha Ivanova is ready to receive SMS, which means that she is the one who gives consent to SMS. Mom, husband or best friend cannot agree for Masha.

You can identify the buyer as you like, the main thing is to be able to prove who exactly gives consent. The safest thing to do is to publish the consent phrase on the site and show it when the customer pays for the purchase. Before paying, the client puts a tick, and the consent is ready.

Often, companies receive consent when the buyer fills out a questionnaire for a discount card. The buyer writes his first and last name, ticks the box next to the SMS permission, signs and receives a card. Everything seems to be in order.

For example, Mosigra's profile. Mosigra asks to leave your data and check the box for permission to send SMS. Everything is legal:

The problem with the completeness of information. Formally, if the client wrote the wrong patronymic or did not write at all, it cannot be proved that Ivan Ivanov gave consent, and not his namesake Ivanov Ivan Aleksandrovich.

There is no universal way to avoid identity problems. From a legal point of view, it is more reliable to go through the entire chain:

ask the client to fill in passport details and phone number

check what the client wrote with the data in the passport. And if there is no passport, ask for a scan

send a test sms to the customer's phone number to make sure the number is not misspelled

It is risky for a business to force a client to fill out a passport application form and then verify it. So the client can refuse the questionnaire and never come to the store again. But what to choose: maximum protection from a fine or convenient conditions for customers - only the company can decide.

Everything you need for business

The Modulbank case is a publication about business. We talk about everything that a Russian entrepreneur needs to know: what new laws have come out, how to pass inspections in various instances, how not to get fined.

Cancellation of SMS

The client should be able to opt out of advertising. It is not necessary to tell directly in the SMS how to do this. For this, a letter or a section of your personal account with instructions is suitable.

You can not demand something complicated and dictate one way to refuse.

The company unsubscribes clients from SMS if the client brings a written application to the company's office. At the same time, the company operates in Magadan. It is illegal to demand to travel to Magadan from another city.

Or the company unsubscribes from SMS when the client sends an SMS with the word "Unsubscribe". This is a feasible condition, but the company dictates the only way to refuse. This is also illegal.

Any simple action is suitable as a refusal, for example, send a letter, SMS, uncheck the box personal account, call the office and refuse SMS by voice.

As soon as the client has refused, the company is obliged to unsubscribe from the SMS immediately. What is "immediately" is not specified in the law. In order not to receive a fine, the company has time until the next SMS after the refusal. The client refused in the morning, and the SMS will come in the afternoon - which means that you need to unsubscribe before lunch.

Get permission to process personal data

If the company sends SMS, it uses the buyer's personal data. You can't just do it like that, you need to get permission. What is personal data and how to work with them, we tell in the article of the Case "Zbagoyna: 152 FZ".

In short, for consent, the phrase “I agree to the processing of personal data” is required. It can be written in the same place where the buyer agrees to advertising in SMS or registers.

The store "Powder" receives permission for personal data when registering on the site:

Indicate information about the company in SMS

It should be clear from the SMS who sent it. At least for this you need to write the name of the company and leave a phone number for communication.

An example is Samsonite's SMS: the company sends SMS on its own behalf, leaving the website address and phone number in the SMS for communication. So the buyer understands who sent him the message.

Some companies send SMS from someone else's number or indicate the number with an error. It seems like you can say: “It was not sent by us, but by some of our partners.” Reception is not working.

If a company does not leave their phone, they are breaking the law. Most likely, the company that is advertised will have a fine. Let's say "Samsonite" from our example does not leave its name, but sends SMS from "Promotions". But since the advertisement is about Samsonite, Samsonite will receive a fine.

Store SMS consent

In case the buyer complains and the antimonopoly service starts proceedings, you must keep the consent to the SMS. According to law minimum term storage - year.

You can store consent in any way you like. If the consent is in paper questionnaires, you can store the questionnaires. Or scan and upload to a corporate cloud storage, such as Google Drive.

If the client agrees to SMS from the site, a record of this must be in the CRM or other program. You can come up with something else, the main thing is for the service to see: here is the consent phrase, here is the client’s signature.

Take responsibility for SMS

Instead of dealing with the law, you can do nothing and shift the responsibility to the contractor.

For example, the Tasty Breakfast cafe is planning an SMS advertising campaign. In order not to understand the law and the mailing process themselves, the cafe finds a contractor.

In the contract with the contractor, the cafe can write:

If the customer receives a warning from government agencies or a fine for violating laws, the contractor will reimburse the amount of the fine and damage due to proceedings with government agencies.

The advice does not work one hundred percent. Under the contract, one company may be liable, and another company may receive a fine. It's also not very ethical.

What's next

2. "Right of the first night"

"Be the FIRST advertiser in the right mailing list, targeting the right audience, with the right (read tested) ad copy." To make sure that you are indeed the first advertiser, look through the archives of the selected mailing list. If the offer has already been advertised, and professionally enough, then your ROI will be much less than it could be - the newsletter has simply worked out most of the "resource" in relation to this proposal. Of course, you can completely change the text of the ad and generate a lot of clicks to the site, but ... will these clicks bring income if readers have a "seen already seen syndrome"?

Often there is advice taken from the experience of advertising in print media. It sounds something like this: "Take a pack of magazines related to the advertised subject, and start looking at the ads in them. Those that are repeated from issue to issue generate income (otherwise why repeat them?)". This advice, however, doesn't always work for emails - they have different dynamics, circulation, readership, lifetime... It's more about the form than the content of the ad. For recurring ads, the main hope is for new subscribers, whose growth is usually not large, or for "immature" after the 1st advertising contact. Therefore, heed this advice and... re-read the previous paragraph. :)

a) A classified ad is a very popular and inexpensive way. The CTR of such an ad is usually higher (at least 1.5 times) if it is located at the top of the email. This, however, is not an axiom. If the ad is directly related to the topic of the article in the mailing list, then, being located immediately below the article, it can have a very good ROI even with a lower CTR. (In fact, this is already a kind contextual advertising). The problem, however, is that the advertiser does not know what the next mailing will be about. Therefore, only the author himself can use this method to the maximum.

b) "Announcement from the sponsor" (sponsor ad) - the same as the line ad, only more in volume.

d) Joint venture with the author of the mailing list on mutually beneficial terms, excluding the risk of the author. An advanced method used by aspiring Western web entrepreneurs to quickly promote a product and create their own mailing list.

4. Which format is more efficient, text or HTML?

It has long been established that HTML, due to its formatting capabilities, is more effective than plain text. But such mailings have a larger volume - not all subscribers like it. The best decision- provide a choice. But then you will have to prepare 2 options - converting scripts used on mailing servers like subscribe.ru work unsatisfactorily, significantly distorting the format.

Your ad will simply not be noticed among many others. In addition, newsletters that are poor in educational content have poor readability - many recipients simply do not read them, or skim through them. There are mailing lists (like safe-lists) to which recipients are subscribed "voluntarily-compulsorily". Naturally, if the mailing list is not informative and consists of continuous advertising, then it is often sent to the trash without even opening the letter!

6. Consider the possible intersection of audiences for mailings that are related to the topic.

On the English Internet, there are mailing communities that practice the exchange of subscribers and advertising. If we are talking about a dozen mailing lists of 1000 subscribers each, then think: what is the sum of subscribers of this "cooperative"? 10,000 or..only 1,000 people each subscribed to 10 mailing lists? Advertising in such "co-ops" is usually not as effective as advertised. Even despite the attractively low cost.

At a minimum, you need to know the number of clicks generated by the ad - replacing a word or two can make a huge difference in response! Download the free script Ultimate Link Tracker

The only way to determine how well advertising text works is through testing. Take your time to use the new ad in advertising campaign- first test it on a small sample of the audience. If you are the author of the newsletter, then send it to a small group (about 1000 people) and look at the results. If they are satisfied, then send it to others, if not, change the text and test again. Thus, you will save money on advertising in other mailing lists.

9. Will you be able to effectively use the traffic received from advertising?

This question is very important, although it is beyond the scope of this article. The fact is that some sites are simply unable to effectively convert visitors into customers. Their selling texts are frankly weak, the page that visitors land on is overloaded with extraneous information and advertising. Some people manage to make the worst mistake by directing visitors to the main page of the site, while the information that continues the thought started in advertisement, is on the inside page. Many factors affect the conversion of visitors, such as the text itself, the design, the graphics used, etc. It is highly desirable to test all these things, choosing the most effective options. For this, there are special scripts, including free ones.