O’Reilly & Associates is a publisher of technical books and software products based in Sebastopol, Calif. The company wanted to promote its new product called O’Reilly Utilities: Quick Solutions for Windows 98 Annoyances. In the past, the company had employed banner advertising, keyword sponsorship and other online marketing techniques, all of which yielded unfavorable response rates.
Looking for an alternative method to market its product, the company turned to NetCreations and their PostMaster Direct service, which allows companies to rent opt-in e-mail lists. The lists cost 20 to 25 cents per name ($200 to $250 CPM), including list rental fee, e-mail distribution and merge/purge.
O’Reilly & Associates composed an e-mail that invited list members to download a free 30-day trial version of the Quick Solutions software. Roger Markowitz, sales and marketing coordinator at O’Reilly & Associates, estimates that the e-mail produced a 10 percent response rate. Of these respondents, an impressive 50 percent went on to download the product. This is far greater than the industry average of 1 to 2 percent.
By using PostMaster Direct lists, O’Reilly was able to concentrate its time and effort on a group of people who the company knew was interested in its product. Specifically, O’Reilly was able to directly target approximately 30,000 potential customers who had opted-in to receive information about UNIX software and products. O’Reilly’s staff composed the e-mail message themselves in-house. NetCreations’ staffers, however, were available for guidance and tips to help make the e-mail more effective.
