PartyLite, a firm that sells candles through a vast network of women, has found a way to reach out to both buyers and sellers: An e-mail newsletter.

The company sends out 500,000 copies of Candle Connection each month. Customers and prospects get it, as do consultants (women who sell the candles) and hostesses (women who host sales parties at home).

They obviously love it; the open rate averages between 30% and 40%. The e-mail addresses are gathered at parties.

Each issue contains offers, advice and specials. The purpose is not to sell directly, but to track how recipients behave and feed data to consultants that will help them target customers. This is done through an IMN Inc. microsite.

The firm may learn, for example, that 10% of those who open Candle Connection go straight to the hostess specials. Consultants can then phone those potential hostesses and slip references to the specials into the conversation.

Some 8% of recipients read the decorating tips. “That tells us that those people are really interested,” said Peggi Peaslee, manager of extranet services for the Plymouth, MA-based firm. “The consultant can then mention the article or the tips in the article to give her a starting point in her conversation with these customers.”

Peaslee emphasized: “We never tell people that we watch what they click on.”

The tracking also helps PartyLite decide how to tweak the copy from month to month.

PartyLite's products range in price from $7 to $125. Each partygoer spends between $40 and $45, Peaslee said.

The 38,000 U.S. consultants maintain their own customer databases and pass along updates to headquarters. “Although we're hitting the ‘send’ button, the customers belong to the consultant,” Peaslee said. “Everything customers need they get through their consultant.”

The newsletter mailing arrives in inboxes around 6 a.m. “We want to make sure it's high up in their inboxes and it's also a good time for Internet service providers to get the mail through,” Peaslee said.

PartyLite is so pleased with the tracking and targeting capabilities that this spring the firm will begin personalizing the newsletters by including consultant's pictures. Recipients will see their own consultants.

PartyLite hostesses get discounts and other product benefits. Consultants earn 25% of sales, and with incentive programs can earn up to 36%.

Most customers and consultants are 25- to 45-year-old women. Most are married with children, although some are senior citizens and single people, Peaslee said. Men also become consultants, she added.