Fax Broadcast Guide
by Steve Hersee
Copia International, Ltd
Introduction
Copia is currently the largest provider of private and Commercial
Broadcast Fax software. There are large service Bureau's that are
larger, but they have internally-developed Software. Copia provides
fax software solutions for customers needing 2 to 99999 phone lines.
This chapter will cover all of the design issues for selecting
and running a fax broadcast system. After reading this chapter you
will better understand the problems and how Copia has chosen to
solve those challenges.
Why Fax Broadcasting?
When the Internet became the big new in 1995-96, people were saying
that "fax is dead". The people that saw the power of the
Internet were sure that the Internet would kill off all fax use.
Well because of the success of "SPAM"(sending email to
people you don't know and trying to sell them your stuff), fax is
coming back with a 20% growth per year. Let me say why I think that
the Internet has not been able to kill off faxing.
First, to paraphrase a line from SaraLee, "Nobody doesn't
like fax". The people that use fax every day, like it. It is
easy, quick and most people have a good experience with their first
use of the fax machine. This is NOT the case with computers.
The second reason that the Internet has not "Killed"
fax, is that email is too familiar and personal. When you receive
email, you do not get a logo, or any graphical information. You
do not mind getting email from your friends and co-workers, but
most people are put off by email from strangers. When you get an
email from a "stranger" and they are trying to sell you
something, it is called SPAM. Even though you have not wasted paper
to print the email, you may have to wait for the email to be downloaded
and the you spend the time to read and then delete it. When you
get a fax the amount of time that you use to decide that it is a
"junk" fax is less than spent in trashing an unwanted
email.
When you talk to sales and marketing people about using the Internet
instead of fax, they are not happy with the email decision. With
email you do not get any graphics. With fax you get a full 8 1/2
by 11 inch page of information. This is much like a full page ad
in a magazine. Sales and marketing like the full page better than
a screen's worth of plan text as delivered by email.
The best and final argument for fax vs. email is that it gets results.
Copia once send a short, single email to a list that we got from
a show. This single email broadcast brought us no leads, and a number
of what I would call fragile people that were ready to go up to
the top of a building with a rifle and start shooting people, because
they got a single "unwanted" email. They also made statements
that they would rather buy an inferior product than to do business
with a company that uses SPAM.
Well as a person that wants to sell a product and have happy customers
this kind of reaction to a marketing plan is not welcome. On the
other hand we have people who have tried a fax broadcast tell us
that the results were amazing. The responses were much better than
they had expected. The number of "Sales", not just leads
were well beyond their expectations.
Contact the Copia Sales department
for more information at 800.689.8898 or click
here to request a quote. |
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