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How it starts
Newsletter marketing often gets started
because
someone realizes that the existing customer base is an excellent market for add-on sales. In this case, email list building is not hard because customers have a vested interest in sharing their email addresses. But what if you don?t know who your customers are? What if you are a retailer who wants to try internet marketing, but don?t have an email list? How are you going to build one?
Hunt for the email contacts
Most companies are always looking for ways to build their email lists. Large companies are trying to get email addresses for their existing customers and prospects, while small or startup companies are just trying to create any list at all! Let's talk about some of the ways you can use your interactions and marketing efforts in the real-world to help build your email marketing lists.
To buy or not to buy?
Where are you going to get the names
and email addresses? Going forward, one answer is you will ask
for the names and email addresses from in-store customers and
visitors to your website. This is not hard to do. Customers
like your products now, and they will surely want to know about the products you add in the future. But building a list of names and email addresses from in-store customers takes time, and if you want to get started with an online newsletter campaign right now, you have no choice but to buy a email list. The question is where is the best place to get one?
Bad
and Good Email Lists
If you have been on
the internet for any length of time, you have undoubtedly
gotten numerous email offers for email lists sandwiched in
among ads for Viagra, a life?s experience PhD and other spam.
Some of these spammer email advertisements offer list rental
rates ? e.g. $450 for 1,000,000 names ? which are hard to turn
down. But our advice to you is, avoid spammer email lists like
the plague. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Ultra-low
list rates usually means ultra-low list quality and a low
quality list means your list server will be getting loads of
?bounce backs,? the email equivalent of ?Return to sender.
Addressee unknown.? in snail mail. The safe and effective
alternative to the spammer email list is an ?opt-in? email
list from a legitimate email list vendor. Okay, but you may
ask, ?how do I know that they are legit?? Well, some ways to
be sure that you are dealing with legitimate email list
vendors are: 1. They don?t spam you. 2. They have an address
and a telephone number. 3. Their telephones are answered by
people and not by a machine. 4. They have legitimate and
verifiable email list resources.
Legitimate email
list vendors get their lists from the publishers of magazines
and newspapers and from e-commerce websites. The people on the
email lists are subscribers and customers, and the term
?op-in? means they have given their permission to receive
email about certain products or services. There are many
benefits to opt-in email lists, among them: 1. The email
addresses have been acquired legally, and the email list
vendor can prove it. 2. The email addresses are real and
stable and that means fewer bounce backs. 3. Even if you
forget to, the list vendor will put a ?wrapper? on your email
advertisement or newsletter (a) that reminds recipients that
they have agreed to receive email on this topic and (b) that
offers them a mechanism for removing their name from the list.
This means that no one will accuse you of being a spammer. 4.
The email list vendors often have other legitimately acquired information about the subscribers or customers on the list, information that will enable them to sort the list and select a sub-list that will address your precise market.
Opportunities to make a contact
From your local chamber of commerce,
to specialized industry groups, the meetings of many
organizations are great opportunities to make contact with new
people. You are exchanging business cards with interested
prospects or possible referral sources, so make sure that you
send appropriate email communications to these people. Start
with a personal email recapping your conversation with them,
and letting them know that you will be adding them to your
monthly email list. Don't just start sending a barrage of
email to every person that you come in contact with, however.
Make sure that the person indicated some interest in what you
have to offer first, or your contact will become quickly
unwanted.
Whether you have a booth, are
one of the presenters, or are simply attending a trade show,
you have an excellent potential opportunity similar to
networking events, but at a much greater scale. Organizing the
follow-ups to people you actually spoke to yourself, and then
adding the person to your personal list is a given. The
general information requests gathered by associates at your
booth can be handled in a similar way. Lastly, you may have
organized a giveaway or contest to gather more leads at the
show. These people are frequently less interested in what you
have to say, and more interested in whatever they might be
getting or winning. As a result, it may require secondary contact to obtain the permission to add them to your regular communications. In general, hitting contest winners with a "hard sell" is not usually effective.
Other ways to build Email
Marketing Lists
Using the telephone to
get email addresses can be a time-consuming process, but isn't
it time you gave your customers and prospects a call anyhow.
In this case the call will both continue to kindle the
relationship, as well as helping you establish an email based
communication point. This will more than justify the cost of
making the call. Inbound calls can be routed to a special
voice mail box ("Dial 5 to receive more information via
email") so you can receive subscriptions from people even when
they are not near a computer, or after business hours.
Contacting people using the phone will likely result in a
certain number of people asking to be "immediately taken off
your list". However, remember that this is not a bad thing!
Ultimately, the focal point of your marketing should be
concentrated on only those people that
want to be marketed to. The rest of your marketing
efforts are just to determine who the correct people are.
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