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JUST THE FAX,
M A’ A M
Insider Guide To Bulk Fax Marketing
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This whitepaper is for anyone interested in using fax marketing for business purposes. After reading this guide, you will be able to execute successful automated fax campaigns that will help you generate business leads and add sales to the overall bottom line.
Just the Fax, Ma’am –
Insider Guide to Bulk Fax Marketing
By Michael Cusden
Michael Cusden, an inbound marketing manager at
SimplyCast, is responsible for creating ebooks, whitepapers
and online marketing guides. Michael is a prolific blogger
who also manages content for SimplyCast’s website and
user application. He has expertise in content marketing,
social media marketing and occasionally has time to write
about it.
As he does not have a fax machine, you can follow him
@michaelcusden or @simplycast.
Ready to use automated fax marketing to get a leg up on
the competition? Read on.
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Table of Contents
04 Isn’t Fax Marketing Old Technology?
05 Why Fax Marketing Works
06 Fax Marketing Best Practices
09 Building A Fax List
12 Designing A Fax Message
15 Tracking Success
19 Conclusion
20 Appendix: Glossary
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Isn’t Fax Marketing Old Technology?
If you are of a certain age, you might be wondering about the “Dragnet” theme of this guide. What
does Joe Friday and company have to do with fax marketing?
Well, the term Dragnet refers to a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or
suspects.
Fax marketing is a system of coordinated measures for generating leads and new sales.
Okay, that is a stretch. But it is certainly a fun theme to use for an online marketing whitepaper. Dragnet was one of the first TV shows to really show the boredom of police work, while shining a light on
heroism and the job getting done.
That, in a way, sums up fax marketing. Not that exciting compared to other forms of marketing but, in
the end, the job gets done. Fax marketing gets a bad reputation for being old and out out of date, but
that is far from the truth.
Sending bulk fax messages is still a very viable option to grow business.
Simply put, fax marketing is a marketing strategy that any business can use to promote and market
their business. The thing is most organizations overlook, ignore, frown upon and even purposely
avoid fax marketing because of the old fashioned image it has.
Fax marketing involves sending promotional materials via fax machine, rather than by direct mail,
email or some other form of marketing. You enter your message and then have the ability to easily
send what is known as a fax blast to thousands of readers all at once. It is all done online using software and it is all automated so you don’t have to stand, watch and listen to that horrible noise we all
have come to hate. Yep, I said automated. Start making that list of all the things you will do instead of
standing by the fax machine.
For the history buffs out there, fax marketing has actually been around much longer than email marketing and has slowly decreased in use with the rise of all the new-age options that the Internet provides. You know, the Twitters, Facebooks and Pinterests of the world. But don’t overlook faxing as an
option for your organization. It is done online and is still one of the most lucrative options around for
putting your message directly into someone’s hands.
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Just picture a typical office, even the one you work in. There are still fax machines and at least one
person has to physically take the paper out of the machine. That gives your message a very high
chance of being read, even for a few seconds. You can’t say that about email, or surveys or Twitter for
that matter.
Plus if you think globally, there are thousands of countries that still rely heavily on fax machines (both
sending and receiving).
Even at the SimplyCast offices we get daily fax messages from local companies and, to be totally
honest, many have worked or at least got stuck in our heads. For example, local fast food purveyors
have sent us pictures of the tasty items on their menus, and local print shops have sent us samples of
their work. If you find yourself holding a picture of a cheeseburger in your hands at around 3:00 on a
Thursday, beware. Drool over it, go out and buy it, then try to say fax marketing is not effective.
So is fax marketing done? The simple answer is no.
Is it difficult to use? Again, the answer is no. No more getting your hands dirty by changing toner.
Everything is done online and is as simple as writing your witty message.
Why Fax Marketing Works
Fax marketing has an extremely high “open rate” since someone has to remove the page from
the fax machine.
Many marketing experts advise that fax marketing can actually set a business apart from the rest of
the crowd. With email inboxes being inundated with promotional and marketing emails everyday and
the home mailbox getting flooded with marketing pieces, the fax machines in many business settings
are neglected and empty when it comes to marketing items.
You will eliminate the pain of manually sending fax messages to all of your clients which will
save you a great amount of time and money.
Fax marketing can be used by organizations of any size for faxing promotions, announcements and
information to a list of existing fax numbers that the company gathers and maintains.
Your competition is not doing it because they think it is old technology and would rather focus
on what is new, i.e. Twitter, Facebook etc.
But just like any other form of marketing, there are best practices to follow and tips to help guide you
to optimal success. That is why I am here.
Are you ready to learn how fax marketing can bring in new leads and add sales to the bottom line?
After reading this guide, you will be ready to dominate one of the older forms of marketing and beat
the competition in the process.
Let the games begin.
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Fax Marketing Best Practices
Fax marketing is no different than other forms of marketing when it comes to best practices that
should be followed to keep things on the up and up. Follow the rules and reap the benefits.
Stray to the dark side and risk your company not only losing customers, but facing legal action to
boot.
Fax is immediate, it can be easily personalized and pre-completed forms are great for quick results.
Not to mention the cost compared to other channels of marketing. A couple of pennies per page is
hard to resist. Hence why there are so many bad apples when it comes to fax marketing best
practices.
Here are the must haves before you even think of hitting send.
Every Fax Must Include
1. The identity of the “official” sender (you).
2. The fax number of the sender.
3. The broadcast date and time. This is usually included automatically.
4. What the relationship is between you and the person receiving the fax. This is why opt-in is key.
An established business relationship is a prior existing relationship formed by a voluntary two-way
communication with or without an exchange of consideration, on the basis of an enquiry,
application, purchase, or transaction between the recipient and the sender regarding products or
services. Basically it means they signed up or agreed to receive messages from you via the fax at
some point.
The other side of the coin is what you should never do. An unsolicited advertisement defined by the
FCC is any material advertising the commercial availability or quality of any property, goods, or
services which is transmitted to any person without the person’s prior express invitation or
permission.
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5. What is the source of the consent to receive messages? You must have received the fax number
from the recipient in the context of a business relationship, or from a public source such as a directory, advertisement, or a website signup form.
6. You must include opt-out requirements. They include:
• Clear and conspicuous opt-out mechanism on first page. Two methods, including fax
opt-out and phone opt-out. The opt-out mechanism may be either a website, email address,
phone number or fax number.
• (Opt-out language) Our failure to comply with the request in the shortest reasonable time
established by the FCC is unlawful.
• Opt-out removal language to state the recipient may request that the sender not send
future nsolicited advertisements to a fax machine or machines, and “failure to comply with
u
the request in the shortest reasonable time established by the FCC is unlawful”.
• Opt-out requests must be honoured after 30 days, or sooner if the sender has the
capability of removing the number sooner.
Do not fax requests are defined as if a recipient requests being removed from a fax reception list, the
sender must promptly comply.
Third-party liability for fax services is defined as a company that hires a third party to broadcast faxes
on its behalf but remains liable if the third party sends unsolicited advertisements.
For over twenty years, it has been illegal to send unsolicited fax messages to companies. You need
to give the customer the chance to opt-in to receive fax updates and promotions. To do this you can
gather user information through your website, landing page or even blog. List creation will be mentioned further in the fax list creation course.
To go hand-in-hand with opt-in, you must provide an easy way for customers to opt-out. As mentioned above that can be through a phone number, fax number or even an email address. It can’t be
like jumping through hoops, it needs to be quick and easy.
No Cover Required
For those who have sent a fax in their life, you know about the cover sheet. It provides all the contact
information and gives a reader an idea what it is about and who it is from. Normally it is considered a
bad idea to not include a cover page, but with fax marketing it is not needed.
You want to keep the send to one page and one page only. If there are multiple pages, the odds increase for it to get trashed without even a thought. So make sure what would be on the cover sheet is
incorporated into your message.
It might be obvious to say, but keep it short, sweet and to the point.
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Size Matters
A fax message gives you a lot of real estate to work with because it is physically the size of a standard
piece of paper. Look to print ads for your inspiration. It is a best practice to utilize the space given and
maximize your message for a fraction of the cost of a newspaper or other print advertisement.
Above the Fold
Derived from newspaper terminology, “above the fold” is literally the main article of the paper and
it is easily viewed without actually opening the paper. This coveted spot is universally critical to any
marketing strategy, but is even more important with faxing.
It is where the eye naturally falls, and where you quickly grab your customer’s attention. If you can
get your hands on a few examples from your own office fax machine, compare which ones grab your
attention right away without any actual reading.
Design
Don’t get too fancy. After all it is a fax and there is no time for large graphics or even colour.
Remember fax machines generally print out in black ink and don’t look as crisp as they do on a
computer screen.
When to Send?
Allow your customers to pick the frequency of the faxes. Give them options to receive faxes daily,
weekly or monthly. This way nobody will be overwhelmed and annoyed with 400 fax messages per
day.
If that isn’t already an option, start your fax marketing campaign slowly, with your best promotion
first. Try weekly first, and if your customers’ response is favourable then increase frequency
incrementally.
Finally, send faxes during normal business hours and on weekdays. This means you need to really
focus on time zones and avoid sending to an office on the other side of the world at 4am. The fax
pile could be large in the morning and your well-crafted message will get tossed with the rest of the
paper.
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Building A Fax List You Can Count On
I bet you have heard this before about other forms of marketing:
The key to successful marketing is simple. Obtain clean and recent data from users who actually want
to receive your message.
It certainly pertains to fax as well.
Many in the marketing community believe that the fax medium will continue to be useful for certain
B2B marketers, such as publishers, event organizers and office utilities providers. But only if used carefully and by following best practices. For this reason you need to steer clear of list sellers and use only
data collected from internal databases and company research.
There are a number of ways to obtain fax data, but one of the most efficient and reliable is to use
your own records. Most companies have been gathering fax numbers for a number of years, but they
may be spread around the organization on multiple databases. The best place to start is your sales
and marketing databases, as many fax numbers will have been collected by your sales team.
The most important thing to remember is your fax marketing success will only go as far as the health
and quality of your lists. Keep bad numbers out and double check your contact information with each
company you sign up. Sure, it will take some extra time but it will pay off in the end.
Adding Contacts
Adding your contact’s fax number to your database in order to build your opt-in mailing list is the key
to your whole fax marketing operation. Without the list of subscribers who want to receive your message, what is the point of sending in the first place? Then you are just one more person or company
filling the world with junk mail.
If you have an existing mailing list of opt-in addresses, you can easily add those contacts by either
copying and pasting each address into a list manager or uploading a file as we will talk about later.
When adding a new contact, take the time to enter all the information you have. So on top of getting
their fax number, it will be handy to also have an email address, a phone number or even a Twitter
handle. It could become valuable later on when we get to split testing or more targeted marketing.
Depending on the features of the provider you choose, your contacts can update their account information on their own once they have initially subscribed. This helps keep information up to date as
people tend to change jobs, emails and phone numbers.
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Uploading Lists
If you already have an opt-in list that you need to upload, most Fax Service Providers make the task
simple. It is pretty much the same as uploading an email list but the only difference is you need
to make sure Fax is mentioned in the title of the row. As long as the document is in some form of
spreadsheet, the information will be uploaded for use and edited in no time.
Common formats for uploading include CSV, EXCEL and plain text. Managing large lists of data can be
time consuming and difficult for online marketers with limited resources, so that is why it is important
to find a list management service that makes everything easy, while still providing the features you
need.
Signup Forms
By adding a signup form to your website or blog, you can begin the process of gathering opt-in
readers who are excited to receive communications from your company. With just a little copying and
pasting, you can add a signup form in minutes. Numerous services will allow you to customize your
form and then generate HTML code that you can add to your website or landing page. This allows
your visitors to enter their email addresses and instantly add themselves to your mailing list.
Your signup form will automatically connect to a list management system where you can monitor, edit
and split the data however you choose. If you have already used email marketing before, you will be
very familiar with this process.
It is a good idea to keep the sign up process as brief as possible. Long forms can scare away
interested leads. Ask for the basic information right away such as email address, name and phone
number and give the user the option to fill in more details later on.
You can easily customize a good signup form to help manage a number of fields that are required
and, at the same time, test different versions of the form to see which one provides a higher
conversion rate.
If your company sells multiple products or services, we recommend you create a signup form with a
product drop down menu to help you identify what product the user is interested in signing up for.
When a user signs up using your form, you should contact the client to thank them for their interest
in your product. Also, over a regular time period you should provide your users with relevant
information to keep them aware of your services.
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This is not as common with fax marketing as it is used more for quick messages or promotions. This is
where you can tie it in with other forms of marketing, like mentioning your fax marketing specials in
your email newsletter. At least tell your users how they can sign up. This will keep your users
interested and motivated when that first fax shoots out of the machine.
It is also important to still have an email set up with your signup form, letting someone know they
have actually signed up and have opted in. Just because the final product is fax, you can’t skip the
standard steps.
This will help users remember who you are and what you have to offer them before you starting
sending special deals and discounts. We find such tactics to be very beneficial as users don’t like to be
sent promotions without having been disclosed or warned that they are coming.
I can’t emphasize enough just how important the signup form is to your overall list building strategy.
It is the only way to build an engaged opt-in list from scratch and even though it takes time you will
reap the rewards later on.
Think Organic
So now that you know the basics of how to create a list of subscribers you are ready to start gathering
information and watching your list grow and grow in front of your eyes. Building a strong client list
from the ground up does not happen overnight but once you have it it is worth every hour, day and
week spent collecting. Let your service provider manage the lists and find bad numbers. You certainly
don’t have the time to do it. This gives you more time to focus on the bigger picture which is your
business.
There are a number of simple and more creative ways to build your list. “How do I grow my mailing
list?” is one of the most popular questions among those doing fax marketing today. The thing to
remember is that any contact with potential customers is a chance to get them to join your list.
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Designing a Fax Message
With fax marketing you need to keep it simple, very simple.
Yes, there is less fax marketing around these days, but interestingly this can mean that receiving a
piece of fax marketing is more of a novel event so it might achieve more cut-through than another
method. It takes a lot to get noticed among all of the emails, direct mailings and even tweets if you
want to throw social media into the mix. Basically, a well crafted fax that grabs a person’s attention is
a powerful weapon in the war of leads and converting sales.
Smart marketers use whatever tools are available to achieve the best and most cost-effective results
regardless of perception. As part of an integrated strategy, fax marketing could still have an important
role to play in B2B marketing for years to come.
Besides, if few in your space are doing it then it only makes sense to take advantage.
But to make a dent you need to have a clean and engaging design. Now that is where it gets a little
tough.
Your Idea
Similarly to SMS marketing, fax marketing is limited to the medium. As a best practice, fax marketing
is most effective when it’s restricted to a single page. So, develop an idea based on those parameters.
What can you sell, push or promote on a single page? Also, think about what sort of action you want
your customers to take. The goal could be as simple as getting them to use a coupon to buy a free
coffee, or directing them to your website where all of your products are featured. Sticking to one simple idea is important so the idea does not get lost.
Share Benefits
Remember that with marketing, you are allowing your customers to make a choice as to whether they
want to do business with you or not. What are the benefits, bonuses or incentives for customers to
opt-in to your fax marketing campaign? Will they receive exclusive deals or be the first to hear about
breaking industry news? Whatever your benefits are, ensure that you promote them not only where
you collect the user data, but also in your actual message.
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Design
By sheer size, faxes are the prime platform to flex not only your promotional muscles but your design
muscles as well. There is so much canvas to work with, it is hard to not get excited. Think about it: you
have the ability to design a masterpiece that not only draws in customers but also reinforces your
company’s mission.
However, keep in mind the medium in which you’re working. Keep the graphics and images simple,
and fonts clear. Essentially, use the entire page at your disposal and to your advantage. You have the
opportunity to truly flex your design muscles. Consider your fax like a billboard. How would you
design it?
Simple in Sty le
Sure, you have an 8.5 x 11” piece of paper but do you really need that much space to push your offer?
Think about your email or SMS marketing campaigns. You are already limited by the medium yet you
still get the message across.
Honestly, there is no difference between faxing, emailing or sending text messages. Furthermore, the
very best design schemes use more white or “negative” space than designed or used space.
Essentially, the more white space you have, the better.
The reason why you need more blank or empty space is that it gives people a chance to rest. Eyes
naturally fall to the most intriguing space and if they have to bounce all over the place they’ll wear
out and they’ll be tired of you.
Try to design a fax piece around the idea that you have two inches gone from each margin.
No Colour
Remember, you are sending your message to a fax machine. You know what that means. It is not a
high-end color printer that will capture all of the glory of your graphics.
You must design for those taking the paper out of their fax machine. Since most fax machines default
to black and white you must design your faxes around that design scheme. Sure a few people will get
a high resolution message but for most it will be that smudgy black and white print that gets on your
fingers.
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Content
Because of the medium – fax marketing – there’s a tendency to be, well, a bit uncouth or tacky.
You don’t need to be overly pushy (think, “FREE VACATIONS!!!!!”) or sneaky (Call US for a CHANCE TO
WIN!!!) in your promotions.
Don’t lower yourself to the norm of fax marketing. Keep a consistent thread throughout your
marketing strategies. If your emails or texts are top-notch, then duplicate your design and
promotional tactics.
P.S. (Post Script)
Adding a P.S. is a non-profit, fundraising trick. Studies have shown that people look at three places
in any promotion or sales letter: their name (and title), the sender’s signature and post-script. For
any busy executive, skimming material is pretty typical. So to tap into this desirous eyeballing always
include a post-script.
The post-script is the place where you make your final push or add the necessary personal note.
Anything that looks different from the main text draws the eye: whether it’s in a font script or actual
handwriting, post-scripts add a bit of flair to your fax.
Testing
A standard practice for any marketing strategy is testing. What testing does is ensure that your design, push and method are all viable and working. Without testing, you will run into a whole slew of
problems, some of which include poor transmission quality and customer reception.
If you already have a fax marketing subscriber list, then send test faxes out to them before sending
out your actual promotion. If you’re not that lucky, then consider faxing internally and among friends.
You’ll be able to see how dynamic and consistent your fax actually is.
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Tracking Success
Tracking and improving on your failures will make you a fax marketing superstar.
Just because you are blasting away with fax messages this does not mean you are exempt from proving results. Sending thousands of fax messages is costly even at a few pennies per page and someone
in your company will want answers on how you did. Measuring results of each campaign is vital to the
constant improvement and increased effectiveness of your fax marketing efforts.
There is a little more work involved in tracking fax results but it is not so hard that you can’t do it
yourself. First, you need to know what sort of data you need to track. If you have experience tracking
other forms of campaigns such as email or SMS marketing campaigns, then you will quickly understand what metrics are key for measuring success.
If you are totally new to tracking results and want to learn about fax marketing metrics, you are in the
right place.
Ask yourself this before you start digging into numbers
1. What are you hoping to learn?
2. Do you have preexisting standards to compare to?
3. How often do you plan on analyzing your data?
4. How will you break down your data into achievable goals?
Must Have Data
Every company has different marketing goals which can make it hard to determine what the data
priorities are in a general sense. So, instead of ranking in order of what you need to focus on, it makes
more sense to generally look at what data is important to every company regardless of size.
Bad Fax Numbers
This is a basic data point that is universally applicable to all of your marketing strategies. From bad
email addresses to bad mobile phone numbers, bad fax numbers are detrimental to your marketing
campaign. Why in the world would you waste time and resources sending a fax to numbers that don’t
exist or are wrong?
Every fax system spits out a list of numbers that work and those that don’t. This practice may be tricky
if you’re broadcasting your promotion to several hundred fax numbers.
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However, tracking and deleting these bad numbers frees up space for numbers that actually work.
Also, if you come across bad fax numbers, it is wise to check with the company to ensure you have
the right number. This, of course, doesn’t apply to companies that have opted out of your fax service.
As with all forms of marketing, bad fax numbers is another reason to try and avoid buying or renting
harvested lists. You never really know what you are getting until you hit send.
Unsubscribes
Looking at who leaves you is always hard no matter the context. Yes, the data is saddening, but the
good news is that it is incredibly valuable to you. If there’s a spike in unsubscribes after a certain type
of fax promotion, then it’s easy to see that isn’t working. It could be your message, it could be your
provider, but whatever the reason, it did not turn out. That is a flag to change it up and review your
entire campaign once again.
Maybe you have increased your frequency from weekly faxes to daily, resulting in a spike of
unsubscribes. This once again tells you that it is time to adjust. Clearly, the data doesn’t lie and your
customers are sharing their displeasure with your frequency change. Analyze past data and look out
for what is the ideal frequency level (this data point is easily found where there are the least amount
of unsubscribes).
Another great way to use this data is to see what method of opting out is the most and least popular.
Say the most popular form is faxing back to your company. Then ensure that method is prominent
on your promotional fax. Also, let’s say the least used way is through your toll-free number. What this
data may point to is the automated system you’ve set up is difficult to use or, even worse, not
functioning at all.
When dealing with unsubscribes, you essentially take the negative data and turn it into a positive.
Make the right changes and enjoy life once again. The unsubscribe is a direct result of your customers
speaking to you through their actions.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Fax marketing is possibly the cheapest form of promotion out there and that is only one of the
reasons you should be using it. For pennies on the dollar, you are able to produce and circulate
critical information to your customers at a touch of a button. For example, if you are a pizza shop,
there is not a better way to get your local neighbourhood hooked on your food than with a quick fax
message.
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Add a coupon, what your selling point is and build up that list of regulars. One fax sent to the right
office can actually touch several people as opposed to an email just reaching one pair of eyes in that
office.
Compared to your other strategies, your fax marketing campaign will have a higher return on investment. More than a bulk SMS promotion, or email marketing newsletter.
ROI is the ratio of how much money (budget allotment) you’ve put into your fax campaign (including
staff time and resources) to the number of sales generated.
To fully ascertain your return on investment (ROI) for your latest fax marketing campaign, look at the
conversion rate to sales.
• How many people acted directly on your fax?
• What is the ratio of sales to the entire fax marketing list (or a segmented group)?
Sure, some of your subscribers may check out your website or social media sites, but what happened
after that? Clearly, the bottom line about this sort of marketing plan is to turn contact into direct
sales.
Conversion Rate
Similar to an email marketing campaign, determining your conversion rate is critical to the overall
effectiveness of your fax marketing campaign.
The data to look at to determine your conversion rate includes:
- How many sales were generated from your fax?
- How many website hits?
- How many customers contacted you through email or phone?
For example, to figure out your conversion rate for sales, take the total number of sales generated
and divide it by the number of faxes sent (to good numbers!). Therefore, if you sent out 100 faxes that
generated 20 sales, then your ROI for that campaign is 20%. It is key to make sure you have set up a
way to track what actually came as a result of the fax. This can include a promo code or a designated
email or phone number that is only associated with that particular fax.
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Website Traffic
Everyone wants more traffic to their website. More traffic means more leads, more potential sales and
a greater standing in the search engines. Make sure to check your website traffic reports after each
fax campaign. Does traffic pick up? Do orders increase? Check and see if you get a spike in traffic
immediately, or if it’s more like a gradual wave. How long does the new traffic last? It will be hard to
tell who exactly is coming due to a fax blast but if you have no other campaigns running and traffic
goes up it is only natural to think that the campaign worked.
You Must Track Results to Achieve Success
The only way you will ever truly know how your fax marketing campaigns are doing is by tracking
results, analyzing metrics and comparing those numbers to previous fax blasts.
Pay close attention to bad fax numbers. They just add a lot of wasted time to the sending process and
that means wasted time for you. Contact companies directly to confirm their fax number if possible.
Don’t let the negativity of the unsubscribe keep you from watching this number like a hawk. A sharp
rise or decline in responses will point you in the right direction for the next campaign.
Fax marketing is possibly the cheapest form of marketing when it comes down to actual dollars spent.
You can get your message out for pennies on the dollar.
Your conversion rate is a critical metric to track simply because it shows how many leads actually buy
your product or service based on your fax message.
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Conclusion
So, there you have it, just the fax ma’am.
Now that you know the basics to fax marketing, you will be able to coordinate measures for
generating leads and new sales, just like Dragnet.
Fax marketing is not the washed up technology everyone is saying it is. There are organizations all
over the world that still use fax marketing to grow business.
Because sending a fax is considered old school, it is the ideal way to separate yourself from the pack.
If you have the right creative message, a fax message will engage and interest almost any type of
consumer. They have your words right in their hands. It is almost a done deal.
If you are on the fence about using the medium to communicate with clients, you need to also
remember that online software has made it very easy to use. You don’t actually have to use a fax
machine anymore. The software provider takes care of that.
All that is needed is the message and list to send to and everything is set.
In the end, fax broadcasting offers the beleaguered company a means of quickly communicating their
special offers to their intended consumers.
Through it, companies have a cost-effective, last-minute advertising medium that has consistently
shown highly remarkable results.
If your company has such a need for a speedy and effective advertising and marketing medium, do
give fax marketing a try.
You will be pleasantly surprised at the high rate of return this marketing medium will give you.
Good luck and happy faxing.
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Fax Marketing Glossary
Not sure about something you read while reading the fax marketing course? Here is an easy-to-use
resource that explains the most common terms used when it comes to fax marketing.
A/B Split Testing: Also known as split testing. This is when the list is divided into two parts, each of
which is tested with a variation of the message. This can include the subject line, call to action or any
other aspect to better determine the more successful campaign.
Above-the-fold: The part of a web page that is visible without scrolling. In terms of fax marketing,
this means to have your message or call to action on the top half of the page.
Conversion Rate: The number or percentage of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in a
given fax marketing campaign or promotion. This is the measure of your fax campaign’s success. You
can measure conversion in actual sales, phone calls, appointments or whatever outcome you want to
measure.
Cover Page: This is the first page of a fax. When you send a fax through email, the body of the email
that you compose basically becomes the cover page. Although not recommended, the cover page
can include your company logo and some information such as your address, website and telephone
numbers.
Fax Gateway: The path where faxes are converted from digital files to printable documents out of a
fax machine, and vice versa.
Fax Pages: You might be charged for faxes based on fax pages, which are actually the number of
minutes required for a fax to be transmitted. Roughly, one fax page takes a minute to transmit but
this could be faster or slower depending on your service provider.
Fax Software: A software program either based online or on a person’s computer that enables fax
functions such as message design, direct faxing and a unique dashboard dedicated to faxing. Most fax
software is inexpensive and accessible right from the service provider’s website.
Internet Fax: Sending fax documents over the Internet. Also known as email fax, electronic fax, virtual
fax and online fax. This also includes email-to-fax and fax-to-email services.
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Junk Faxes: Similar to email, junk faxes are unwanted or unsolicited faxes. Some service providers automatically reject junk faxes based on characteristics common in spam faxes. Some service providers,
on the other hand, provide users with the freedom to determine how faxes are classified as junk. You
may also specify fax numbers that you want to block.
Local Number: The virtual fax number assigned to you may be a local number specifically assigned to
an area, or a state. When you use local numbers long distance charges will apply whenever you transmit them.
Overage: Fax pages beyond the number of pages included in a specific pricing plan.
PDF: Portable Document Format, a file format to which faxes are converted when they are transmitted
from a fax machine to a computer or vice versa. Most Internet service providers use this format for
uploading your message to be turned into a fax message.
TIFF: Tagged Image File Format, another common file format used in Internet fax. This file type is easy
to handle because documents can be attached as a single TIFF file rather than as a series of separate
files.
Toll Free Number: The virtual fax number assigned to you may be a local number specifically assigned to an area, or a state. When you use local numbers long distance charges will apply whenever
you transmit them.
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