Building Your Email List (and Your Loyal Customers)

Quality Email Marketing is Still Alive and remains
a valuable business relationship development strategy.  

Consider these tips for building a deeper and more valuable email list.

Offer Incentives

Incentives can come in the form of content rich materials such as white papers to discounted products and services. Place an email opt-in form on your website with an incentive attached. Other great places to put an opt-in form are on your social media pages, on the side bar of your blog site and attached to white papers and post event resources.

The Easier, the Better

Make signing up for your email list as easy as possible. First of all, make sure it is not difficult for people to find where to sign up. Post a link on every page of your company website for people to subscribe to your email list. Secondly, once someone clicks on your link, do not require a lot of unnecessary information. All you really need is an email address and name at this point. People will be more likely to provide you with these two pieces of information than they will be to fill out a form including their address, telephone number and more.

Use Your Current Contacts

Always make sure to include the option to “Forward to a Friend” at the bottom of your emails (Sage E-marketing for SalesLogix or  ACT! automatically includes this for all emails). If you produce content-rich information, people will be more likely to forward the information on to friends and colleagues. Those friends and colleagues will be receiving it from someone they know and trust, and will be more likely to look at what you have to offer. By forwarding an email, your current contact is saying, “This is great information from a company I trust.”

Business Cards

Passing out your business card is natural and even expected in the professional world—trade shows, seminars, business meetings or even small talk with a stranger can be opportunities to network. While the basic information—name, title, company, phone, address, email and website—is standard on a business card, have you thought of promoting how someone can opt-in to your emails or newsletters? Doing so can be as simple as directing the person to a short landing page URL (e.g. http://www.successwithcrm.com/subscribe-to-blog/ ) to opt-in to your email on the back of your card.

Use Direct Mail

If you already have a large direct mailing list, take advantage of this list. On every piece of direct mail you send, offer information on how to sign up for your email list. This way, you are marketing directly to people you know are already interested in your product. To provide them with a reason to actually go to a computer and sign up for your email list, offer them some form of an incentive: a whitepaper, discount, a special online offer or even grant access to exclusive company specials. People love gifts, which make them a great tool to use to gain information.

Make it Worthwhile for Your Readers

It is a rule of thumb in email marketing to always make it easy for your customers to opt-out of the Email newsletters and updates that you send. However, if you make it worthwhile to stay subscribed, they will continue to follow you over the years and may even become evangelists of your business.

What tips have you found useful in building your email list?