Opinion on this email service?

by Sophie
(Wardrobe Design Online, UK)

I was wondering what your opinion was on this service that dropped in my email box today: www.blast4traffic(dot)com

ANSWER

Sophie, I've never seen this service before, but there are a few things that spring to mind.

The first is that the basic premise seems to be offering access to an email list – someone else’s email list. That begs the question of whether or not YOUR service in YOUR location will be relevant to these people. They also seem to be US based, although I do get a sense of secrecy around their exact location.

So, I'd definitely want to know how and where they collect their email addresses. It would also be useful to know whether they can be segmented into customer types that would increase the relevance of your email.

If I were you I'd want to see an example of one of their emails. Are they plain text? How easy is their HTML editor to use?

They list some (on the face of it) impressive clients, and some good-sounding testimonials. You can never tell how genuine these are, though, and there isn't anything beyond those to make me completely satisfied this is worthwhile. It's all a little vague after that.

This may be a great scheme and worth a try. However, I'd say that nothing beats building your own opted-in list and sending them genuinely valuable content with every single marketing message. In the long run, that will produce the best results.