FFA Marketing: go Pro - send your email ads

(continued from 10-02-05 article, FFA Marketing: Posting your links free)

The flip side of posting your links free to FFA and classified ad boards is going Pro and then emailing YOUR own ads to the posters. When you post your link free you receive email. The email comes from the board owners, Admins and the Pro members. Each party has paid so that you can post your link free. The owners and Admins have purchased or lease a script and then pay someone to host their site. They then add their boards to the large syndicates and major Networks like Worldwidepromoter and etc. Pro members purchase subscriptions to the boards.

Each major Network has itÂ’s own rates and then link up to itÂ’s own set of boards. When marketers agree to post their link free to a board or Network, they must agree or opt-in to receive email in return for the service. Once they agree and post their link, the Pro members of that board is then able to send an email to the poster one time. Boards typically subscribe to a Network. This means that, for those boards who subscribe, each day thousands people post to their site via a submitter of some sort. Those emails then become part of that individual board's database and are accessible for one day. (The day after you made your post.)

The rules governing sending emails are fairly simple:

1. Free members agree to receive email one email each from the Network owners, Admins and Pro members. The agreement the marketers sign is like a legally binding contract - one to be honored by both parties.

2. Pro members (and Admins and owners) are then allowed to send their emails to the posters ONE TIME AND ONE TIME ONLY. This is what has, in general, caused major heartburn in the FFA industry fueled in part by abuses on both sides of the fence. There are those who post their link free and then get offended by all the email they receive. Of course you will get email! That is stipulated upfront. Then, there are those Pro members who harvest emails and send their ads multiple times. That of course is not cool. Then there are the free posters who put auto responders up on their email accounts to send ads to the Pro members! That is wayyyyyy not cool.

Adding to the controversy are the so-called ‘bulk’ email services and other collection sites which sell or otherwise offer large databases of email addresses. Those email addresses actually came from the FFA posters, which again, you can only email to once. While you may not have sent to the list yourself on any given day, people tend to forget all this over time. So, someone who posted an ad in April may find themselves getting email from another marketer in October! Sometimes October of another year!! People tend to get testy when they receive email from some marketer months or even years after they posted a link to an FFA board or network.

Despite the controversy, FFA marketing is invaluable provided YOU take precautions and market responsibly

By far the most effective aspect of FFA marketing is in being a Pro (or owning your own board) and then sending your ads to the posters. Xtream has two FFA boards each linked to high traffic Networks: XtreamFFA and XtreamNet FFA. Each day several thousand people post to the sites. 10-03-05 for example: 3102 leads at XtreamFFA and 2794 at XtreamNet FFA. The email address stay active for one 24 hour period during which the Pro members can send their ads. After that, they are replaced with the previous day's batch of posters.

With these two and similar sites you always want to do the following:

1. Always send your ads to the posters via the onboard mailer. This does a couple of things for you:

a. Email goes out through the sites ISP This is a critical factor these days in email marketing. ISP providers (for most individuals this means your internet connection and also your primary email account/access provider) can prove to be extremely email marketing unfriendly. Even a hint of a spam complaint can get your computer and email banned! Using the onboard mailer at a legitimate FFA service protects you from complaints and subsequent hassles.B

b. Email always contains the very important disclaimer - one that reminds the posters that they used the board to market their links and agreed to receive email for doing so. This is critical should you be subject to a spam complaint and then investigations by spamcop and your ICP. c. You can only send your email once a day to the posters. The script keeps track of this and prevents you from emailing the list again. This protects both you and the poster

2. If emailed the list of leads, (one site has this feature) delete the email containing the addresses if you emailed those leads that day already. Yes, it is tempting to keep them and perhaps email them again later - but really not worth the consequences should you be caught. On days you missed, you can send to the list using your own bulk emailer. Frankly, I have yet to find a decent one that actually works properly. Should you email the leads yourself ALWAYS INCLUDE THE PROPER DISCLAIMER! Otherwise you risk spam complaints

Does all this sound daunting and put you off on marketing with FFA sites? I hope it does not as
Pro FFA marketing and emailing to the leads is really quiet an effective means of advertising online. Why is this? Simple - marketing studies show that readers need to see offers up to seven or more times before responding! As most FFA free posters do so many times over the course of a week, you have a good opportunity to get your message across to them. Over time, this can be a highly effective tool and worth having in your arsenal. You just really need to exercise caution and good sense when using this resource.

You get Pro memberships into the two Xtream FFA services XtreamFFA and XtreamNet FFA with your annual subscription to XtreamNet Marketing Center