For the longest time, I wanted to test some of the online tennis sites that promise to take you from a beginner to a competition player faster than you can say, "Time, Gentlemen, please." So, I signed up with ten of them and saw quite a spectrum of web designs and professionalism out there. What struck me as odd is that many of them seem to subscribe to the same marketing methodology: As soon as you sign up for their site, they hammer you with e-mails. And you can't call it spam because you have signed up for something and they offer you the unsubscribe button. Hmmmhh....
LICENSE TO BLAST
Quality and Ethics of Online Coaching
By Rich Neher
I had a lot of fun looking at those ten online tennis teaching sites. Some of them were extremely professional, others were quite lame and a whole bunch hammered me with an e-mail strategy that was somewhat spammy.
Obviously, I couldn't spend many hundreds or thousands of dollars signing up for paid courses, like the $799 Craig O'Shannessy is asking for his collection of 9 courses. I'm sure since Novak Djokovich had hired him as data consultant and since 6 of his 9 courses cost $149 each, the big package is probably worth every cent.
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The goal of my non-scientific survey is to find a site I myself would engage to learn a stroke, a technique, or tactics.
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I was most impressed by one guy: Brad Hiete. His site dailytennislessons.com is professional, easy to navigate, and if his free lessons are indicative of his style and teaching abilities, that's one to sign up for in my opinion. And since his site name promises daily tennis lessons, you can't really complain about a daily e-mail. It's not a fresh, new lesson every day, of course, he's recycling them around quite a bit, I guess. Brad is an active tennis pro in my area of Southern California. Although I have never met him, I think I'm going to look him up one day. I like no-nonsense teaching pros.
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On the other side of the spectrum was Ian Westermann of essentialtennis.com. Lots of claims that can't be verified and 29 e-mails Mr. Westermann sent me over the course of 12 days. One day he sent me 4 - that's a big no-no in my book.
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Now, you have to, of course, ask yourself how many e-mails per time frame is too much? I wanted to know and looked up a website called SmartrMail. They write, "SmartrMail has thousands of e-commerce merchants sending emails with us to over 100 million subscribers. Most of these merchants have small to medium-sized businesses, which makes our data perfect for similar merchants to gain smart insights from."
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Under 'Email Frequency Best Practices' they recommend:
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Try to send at least one email per week. Otherwise you’re missing out on sales opportunities and your list will become disengaged.
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Sending an email every second day (or even more often) will drastically lower engagement levels without generating more sales.
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While you might be able to get away with sending an extra weekly email, pushing out any more definitely gets you into spammer territory. And if you’re still thinking of doing this, remember that receiving too many emails is the number one reason people unsubscribe from lists.
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So, there you have it, folks. two emails per week is acceptable. Two a day sounds like a License to Blast, doesn't it?
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Here are the ten sites in no particular order. The following criteria were used to determine an OVERALL RATING:
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Site appearance - from 0 (worst) to 10 (best)
Spam factor - from 1 (none) to 10 (spammy swamp)
Average Cost of instruction - 0 (free) - 1 (under $100) - 2 (over $100)
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Overall rating = Site appearance minus Spam factor minus Average cost
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SITE/APP
CONTENT/COST
ASSESSMENT
8.
FeelTennis
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Owner: Tomaz Mencinger
Location: Ljubno, Slovenia
Claim: "Tennis Instruction Beyond The Obvious.
The higher level of tennis you're going after, the higher level of instruction you must receive. This is where you'll get it."
Website lists:
Courses and e-books.
Content: courses and e-books intertwined on two sites: feeltennis.com and another Tomaz Mencinger site, tennismindgame.com.
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Price: Regular courses $97 (25% off during Pandemic). "Tennis for Beginners" course $47. Plus two e-books $37.
The site looks professional and is easy to navigate.
Neutral: After signing up, Tomaz sent out 5 daily e-mails, and then it stopped.
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Site appearance: 6
Spam factor: 3
Average cost: 1
Overall rating: 2
9.
Online Tennis Instruction
onlinetennisinstruction.com​
Owner: Florian Meier
Location: Schwarzenbeck, Germany
Claim: "Whether you use one of our online training programs or you attend one of our OTI clinics, we will give you laser-focused feedback on your individual strokes."
Website lists:
Courses / Blueprint Courses
Content: A few free videos and 13 Blueprint Courses.
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Price: Major courses cost $147. Monthly subscriptions are $29.99
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The site looks professional and is easy to navigate. The lessons have a lot of good comments.
Negative: Daily e-mails after the initial sign-up.
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Site appearance: 8
Spam factor: 7
Average cost: 2
Overall rating: -1
10.
Brain Game Tennis
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Owner: Craig O'Shannessy
Location: Austin, TX
Claim: "World's number one tennis strategy."
Website lists:
Ten courses. Tennis speaking engagements.
Content: Ten tennis strategy courses.
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Price: Ten courses mostly $49.95 and $149.95. All 10 courses $799.
The site looks professional and is easy to navigate.
Very negative: After signing up, Craig sent out 16 e-mails in 10 days.
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Site appearance: 9
Spam factor: 8
Average cost: 1
Overall rating: 0
