13 Ways To Build Your Email Marketing List

It can be argued that every business needs some sort of email marketing list, but for a technology-based business, it's practically a requirement!  An effective mailing list is more than just finding hundreds of email addresses to add to your database, though.  Your mailing list must be made of individuals and businesses who are interested in your products and services.  Building a mailing list is similar to growing a relationship – if you start out wrong, you'll ruin your chances of having a rewarding relationship. If you prove yourself trustworthy, you and your mailing list could enjoy many quality years together!

Your first, and probably most important consideration of building an email marketing list is that the people who are on the list want to be there.  If you've added people without their permission, you are “spamming” them. This causes the recipients to lose trust in your products and services before they even know what you have to offer. Allow people to “opt-in”, which is just a fancy way of saying they can confirm their desire to be on your list.  The easiest way to manage a list of confirmed, opt-in prospects is to use one of the various programs that handle all aspects of list management for you:

www.constantcontact.com
www.mailchimp.com   
www.aweber.com
www.getsubscribers.com
www.listbuilderpro.com
www.yourluckylist.com

Most of these types of services not only save your contacts for you in a database, but also offer templates and easy-to-use forms to email the contacts on your list.  You can add your logos and customize the look and feel of every newsletter or email you send out.

Here are 13 ways to build your email marketing list:

1. Create a page on your website that allows people to add their email address to your mailing list through an opt-in form (programs like Constanct Contact give you a quick and easy form to copy and paste the code onto your web page).

2. Include a link to the opt-in form on every page of your website.

3. Include a link to the opt-in form in every email you send out.

4. Give away a white paper or other valuable information. Use a landing page to capture email addresses entered by individuals wanting the document, and use pay-per-click advertising to send potential prospects to your landing page.

5. Ask for email addresses from any prospect you meet or during check-out if you have a retail storefront for technology.

6. Include a link to your opt-in form on all published materials (brochures, business cards, etc).

7. Write an article and give it to another business with a newsletter going out to people in the same target market as your own; include a link to your opt-in form in your author biography.

8. Write an article on a topic of interest to your prospective clients and distribute to article directories.  Include a link to your opt-in form in the author biography.

9. Ask current subscribers of your list to forward your emails to friends and colleagues who would benefit from the information.

10. Show the benefits of joining your mailing list – be sure to link to an older email/newsletter you've sent out, or to your newsletter archive on your website to let potential subscribers see what they'll get when they join your list.

11. Attend conferences, trade shows and seminars in your target vertical market and exchange business cards, asking each person if it's ok to add them to your mailing list.

12. Establish a loyalty program – offer special discounts on items ONLY to people on your mailing list.

13. Become active on social networking sites and include a link to your opt-in form in your profile.

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Erick Simpson
MSP University
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Comments

[Erick Simpson]

Thanks, Cris - also create links to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts on your communications, newsletters and website. We are really finding these social networking environments to be successful additional ways to capture prospects' contact information.

Erick Simpson

[Cris Santeiro]

Great article. Always good to get more tips on how to get people on your mailing list. I found this information to be very thorough and practical. I hadn't thought of how many places I could have my opt-in form.

Thanks for your tips.

Cris Santeiro