After the incredible success of Hotmail.com, the use of signature files on all outgoing e-mail accounts has been a common method of web promotion. The limitation that most people face is that there is a limit to how much "legitimate" e-mail they can send everyday. A key but often overlooked characteristic of the Hotmail campaign that made it wildly successful is that every user of Hotmail was actually part of its campaign. Rather than sending signature file ads from only one e-mail account, Hotmail had a virtual army of people promoting their service. One way we can boost the number of mails carrying our signature files is to offer free e-mail accounts to people and attach OUR signature files to their outgoing email.While it is now harder to give out free e-mail accounts than when Hotmail first started out, even a small handful of active users of your free service can dramatically increase the number of your signature files being displayed. Everyone.net offers a cheap Group Mail account that lets us offer free e-mail accounts to 100 people, at $9.99 a month. For less than 10 cents each, you'll get an large group of people pushing your advertisement every time they send out an e-mail message. There are probably other companies offering to let you provide free e-mail to others (the key point being they must allow you to attach YOUR signature file to each outgoing e-mail), but Everyone.net does seem to be very user friendly, easy to set- up( no setup cost), and cheapest. They also offer to give you a free domain name of your choice when you sign up. If you already own XYZ.com, you could take advantage of their offer by also getting XYZ.net for free. For sites with large and dedicated North American audiences, there is even a Sponsored Mail solution where they essentially offer their service for FREE! This is certainly a proven, low cost strategy to use, especially if you are looking for some "free stuff" to offer your web site visitors, gaining their goodwill and turning them into your "evangelists" at the same time. |
