Xtream Marketing and Xtream Global provide innovative online marketing and internet advertising solutions for anyone seeking to promote their affiliate programs, home businesses, network marketing opportunities, goods, services, and products on the world wide internet through Xtream Members. Xtream provides live, interactive training and mentoring in their online conference room webinars and compensates Xtream Affiliates with a unique Progressive Commission Plan that increases as the company itself grows.
Offline traditional commercial mail:
Most people are familiar with offline Commercial or Bulk Mail. It comes in the form of a flyers, shoppers, coupon packages, post cards and other similar items which are delivered to your mail box via your local Postal Service. Some people refer to it as Junk Mail. While the Bulk Mail you receive is free (for you), there is nothing free about Bulk Mail Advertising. And, whether you consider Commercial Mail junk or not, someone paid to have that mail sent to you. Advertisers purchase material that is sent to you - whether it be a coupon package or your weekly shopper. Advertisers purchase Bulk Mail permits from the Postal Services and then pay a per piece fee for everything the service delivers to your box. You cannot, on your own, put your ads or flyers or brochures or ANY item in anyone's mailbox. It is illegal and you could face fines and penalties that include imprisonment should you be caught and convicted of this type of advertising.
Internet advertising commercial email:
Online, you see that all the major email service providers, as well as internet service providers, do basically the same thing and follow the basic practices of the offline Postal Services. They have advertising on their pages you
Enter in the free commercial email industry which has been widely misunderstood, misused, and abused. In a nutshell: email advertising involves sending your messages to a person's email inboxes. In order to do this, couple things are needed:
- You must first get the recipients PERMISSION to send to them.
- You must also have the permission of the EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER as well.
Let's start with your esp as that is fairly simple. Due to Email and ISP TOS as well as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2002, you cannot send bulk mail to a person's email inbox without first getting express permission from both the recipient as well as the esp. The terms of service (tos) of the email provider you use will tell you exactly what THEIR policy on commercial email that does not originate from THEM. The majority of your email and isp service providers do NOT allow you to send, or receive, what they perceive to be Commercial Email. Some email services are stricter than others. AOL for example has a zero tolerance for commercial email that often extends to programs who provide any kind of online marketing, whether or not Commercial Email is involved or not. Yahoo was at one time more flexible and considered to be 'marketing friendly', but have changed their protocols that make it difficult for the online marketer to use there email services for commercial purposes - unless you purchase a business account with them and even then it is sometimes problematic due to their Spam filters. Gmail, on the other hand, seems to handle bulk and commercial email well and is considered to be 'marketing friendly.'
Online Email Marketing Resources:
Safelists - Free to Join:
Pro FFA - requires Subscription:
Find more email marketing and internet advertising specialties and online marketing resources:
Commercial Mail Commercial Email marketing and internet advertising article:
Bulk Mail:
Bulk Mail usually refers to sending email to a large ‘list’ of email addresses which are called Leads. Leads come from many sources, usually from a Company that offers items to the recipients - normally something free, like a sweepstake or information, to get them to sign up that item. When you do, you enroll as a member subscriber in that Company’s list and give your permission to receive email from them, their ‘Sponsors", and Advertising Subscribers. The company then bundles those email addresses in bulk packages which they then sell to their Sponsors and Advertising Subscribers.
In order to send your email to those addresses you usually need a tool called a Bulk Mailer. Most bulk mailers are desktop utilities which use your own isp to send your ads.
Membership Based:
Membership based venues require that you join the site and agree to accept owner, admin, and member emails. In return, you can send your own ads. You must also verify, or validate, the email account you will be using to accept members’ emails. You must also continue to accept email after you join. This is sometimes referred to as reciprocal email marketing. You accept email from the membership, they accept email from you.
There are many types of venues which provide email advertising solutions including safelists and list builders. There is a specialized venue associated with the FFA - or free for all - ad boards in which the Pro, or paid members of a particular FFA site can email those recipients who posted to the ad board. The board offers a free link service in exchange for you agreeing (opting in) to receive email from the Boards Pro FFA Members.
Basically, in order for the average person to send commercial email to people free or at low cost, you must seek out and join programs and venues that specialize in online commercial email. All these venues require permission from you to be able to use the service. You can find many different types of email marketing venues on the different Xtream Membership webpages. The majority of them are Member sites and require you give permission to receive commercial email in order to send your own.
You will find that most venues which specialize in email advertising ban the major isp and esp providers: AOL, MSN Hotmail, Excite, Comcast, even Yahoo at times. The reason usually because those service providers block - or bounce - commercial email not originating from them or by those who have purchased their email advertising services, making it virtually impossible for the box holder to receive messages from the services they joined (even if they want and need to.) For this reason, online marketers who do email marketing need commercial pop3 email and other related items, such as an auto responder service.
Besides joining or subscribing to services which provide internet email services, you also need specialized tools to help you with your email marketing. This page lists useful email marketing tools along with articles or tutorials on how to use those tools - in addition to WHY you need to use them. Examples:
You need for you email to actually be delivered to that person who gave you permission. This means analyzing your copy to ensure you do not have words that will trigger the spam filters. In your Xtream Members library you will find tools that scan and correct your email copy of spam words.
You need Subject Lines that will catch the recipient’s eye and intrigue that person to actually open your email. The Headline Analyzer helps you develop Subject Lines that are appealing to readers.
Once the reader opens your email, you want that person to RESPOND to your offer. Xtream holds workshops on effective ad writing and provides several articles on the subject.
These are some useful tools to use in your online email marketing:
Email Genius: Found in your Xtream Digital Library. The utility scans your email copy and then reports on the spam words.
Ezy Ezine Ad Formatter: Found in your Xtream Digital Library.
Subject Line Analyzer: Free to use online utility. The Subject Line Analyzer by aminstitute rates your Headline by three criteria - interlectual, emotional, and spirtitual. It can help you develop subjects that appeal to people so that they then take the action to open and read your ad.
WorldCast: Free to download and use desktop bulk mailer. It also tests email addresses for validity. This is a Visual Tutorial on WorldCast, this is another website tutorial.
can purchase, as well as commercial email packages in which they allow you to send Commercial Email Ads to their members. Commercial Email is not free but is rather a booming industry that helps pay for the free email services such as Yahoo, G-mail, and MSN Hotmail. You receive that commercial email as you gave that service permission to do so when you signed up for their service. You will note that you cannot sign up for any email or isp service without agreeing to their terms of conditions (tos), and tos always has a provision in which you Agree to receive their commercial email.
A note on Spam: most email servers have a list of words they consider to be spam. Free is one of them as is any word with off in it - offer, office, back office, and etc. Email with spam words are filtered. Sometimes they go to your Bulk or Junk box, other times they are simply blocked and you never receive the email - even if you gave permission and need to receive that email.
There are two separate types of online email marketing one is called Bulk email marketing and is oftentimes called Leads marketing, the other is a Membership Based Service. Both require permissions.