Ok, so I see people talking about forums that charge money to join, have monthly membership fees, etc. and I started wondering what the benefit was. I mean, what are you getting for your money that you can't get from a free forum? Are they giving you the real "secret sauce" of email marketing? And if so, why hasn't someone just signed up and then ripped all the content and posted it up here or on the other forums? So, with that in mind, would you pay for access to a forum or site that was truly giving up the secret sauce of email marketing? One that could be verified as run by a true email guru, a proven baller in mail. And if so, how much would you pay for this? Guys like DG post up some nuggets of info that reeks of genius but he leaves out a few things that he still keeps as his "secret sauce", parameters, thresholds, linits, etc. What if you could access those? And I want to take the whole "fuck that! I'm not training my competition!" bullshit off the table for the sake of this poll/question. IMO, until every network is capped on every offer and we're all mailing off of the same IPs on the same data, then we aren't eachothers competition. With that said, where do you stand on paying for information like this? :listen:
If you've dealt with mailers for any period of time, you will know the following to be true. What is one person's secret sauce will be almost completely contridicted by the next person's sauce. For example, to use rDNS or not. Some swear by it, others say never to use it. Domain privacy, same thing. The list is endless. I can speak about many things on the back end ISP level, among other things, that go on behind the curtain. Many mailers have no understanding of the back end ISP, and what goes on there. If they get terminated, it is simply the big bad ISP. While they gripe about one box, the ISP is worrying about hundreds or thousands, and their whole network. But I digress... That said, if it was truly valid information (even if conflicting) it would be work a few bucks. I do not mind conflicting views. However, some people simply do not back up their assertions and turn such well intended threads into a flame war. Which I think is a waste of time and energy.
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I think the best you can hope for on a public forum is "why didn't I think of that" kind of information. If you can find someone who is credible and is willing to share their knowledge for a fee then by all means, go for it. One of the keys to success in any business is efficiency - the more you can do within a certain time frame the better...and the less time you spend figuring something out the more you can focus on what makes money. The thing I notice a lot with the guys selling their "how to be a mailer" services is that they were never really that successful at mailing, but know enough to introduce someone and get them going. For info to be relevant the person sharing it needs to be active in the business and not someone who's on their way out and just looking for some comfort cash from noobs.
There are really two levels of secrets here. There's a level 1, like Dold said above, that covers the basics. It's not a big secret to us that you might need RDNS for one domain vs another, but to a novice, it's huge. And it's probably something most of us don't mind giving out. Level two is more of the real specifics. Domain setup, Froms, redirects, throttles, max connections, content/junk text, backoffs, warming, and a million other things. When this information goes out in the open, I think most people are scared everybody and their mother will soon be doing it, and well, when too many people know of a free lunch, it usually stops being free. I'd be wary of any forum that offered a pay-to-learn-secrets model. I think the closest we can come to it on here is to barter information.... e.g., someone wanting the latest "scoop" on Hotmail might want to share his expert AOL tips with someone who has mastered Hotmail and is looking to add AOL. And the entire tips will be shared in secret, never openly for others to see. What I'm most interested about is learning "secrets" beyond one method. e.g. certain domains allow inboxing using more than one specific method. The more one knows a domain inside and out in terms of delivery, and the more tricks they can store up their sleeve, the greater the odds theyll survive when their method #1 suddenly no longer works (Ohms Law for Email - what works today won't work 6 months from now) If anybody wants to prove me wrong and openly post all their secrets, I'll be happy to say "Dang, I was wrong!"
And I hope this proves to be the case in the "Tip of the Day" section. I know there are guys who spend their days watching 100's of seed accounts, dribbling out mail on a C waiting to find out which IP is inboxing Yahoo then they pound it out until that door shuts. These guys would be great to hear from regarding Yahoo secrets. As well, I know guys that KILL AOL and I'd love to hear from them too. I just wish I had something to share that would entice these guys to share from time to time. I'm hopeful though! :itsme:
