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WHERE BUSINESSES GO TO GROW

Basic List Building Strategies

BY Peg McDermott on Nov 09, 2010 / IN Email Marketing

There is no doubt that email marketing has become one of the best and fastest ways to build your online brand and promote your services. The process of building a mailing list isn’t an easy one, but, well-worth the effort when your open rate is well above the average of 8-10%.

A responsive mailing list is your ideal target market, people that are asking you to send them information and offers by email. Many internet marketers make virtually all of their income just by sending email’s to their lists. When it comes to building your own list the first thing you should do is make it easy for visitors to leave their info. If you have a website or blog add a subscription form to all of the main pages. Make it highly visible and offer your visitors something of real value in exchange for joining your list. Above all else keep it simple! Our attention span is down to seconds today, make it easy for them to share their information with you. The general rule is, the easier you make it the more email addresses you will collect! If you have an existing customer base make it a top priority to get an email address from everyone that makes a purchase from you. Whether it’s during the sales process or after the purchase of one of your products make sure that you ask your customers for their email address. The optimum time to do this is before the purchase is completed because they will think it is part of the process. It is very important to always remember that your customer must give you permission to send them promotional emails. Asking them for an email address as part of the sales process does not give you permission to add them to any other mailing list or bombard them with promotional emails. That can lead to spam complaints that you don’t want. What it does do is give you the opportunity to follow up with them, ask how they liked the product or service and then entice them to join your regular mailing list.

There are many ways that you can entice people to join your mailing list. Here are a few quick ideas that you can use;

– Give them a bonus product, free gift or a discount on their next purchase when they subscribe.

– Send them to a webpage where they can download a free ebook, report or software related to the product they purchased.

– Offer them free access to member’s only website where they can get access to additional information, customer perks and special offers.

– Give them a chance to win a prize, by holding a free contest or sweepstakes for subscribers only

– Offer them free customer support and email consulting.

– Have them fill out a survey and give them a free gift as an incentive to complete the form.

There are many ways that you can entice people to join your mailing list and by focusing on these core strategies you will be well on your way to building a responsive list for your business. The simple fact is that email marketing is essential for any business. Once you have a list, and begin building a relationship with your subscribers they will have more confidence in you and your business.

What list building strategies have worked for your business?

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