Simple Ways to Grow Your Email Contact List
One of the easiest ways to market your company is by email. Sending out newsletters, promotions, holiday cards, etc.
The great thing about creating an internal company email list is that you own the contents. In contrast, your social media content is owned by social media sites. That is why it’s important to curate your own list of email contacts of potential and current clients.
Generating an email marketing list is quite simple. The key is to build your list from the connections you already have.
Personal Connections
Your personal connections can be your biggest asset. These are people you already know and hopefully people who want to support you in your business endeavors. Adding them to your initial emails will be a good start. They may even pass the information along to more people that you know, then those people will be additions to your email list.
Sales
When customers complete a purchase, both online and in your brick and mortar store, ask for their email address. This will organically create a list of people that are interested in your business or services. When customers check out on your site, create a section where people can select if they want to receive emails about sales or be put on a newsletter list. At your brick and mortar site, when a patron is checking out at the register, ask them if they want to sign up for any promotional emails. Soon you'll see that you've curated a perfect list of interested people for your emails. After getting their email address, follow up with a “thank you” note and start a positive relationship.
Site-wide
If you're sending out business emails chances are you have a website. Promote email sign up on each page of your website. For example, a button that reads “sign up here” or an area where website visitors can type in their email address to sign up automatically. With a direct fill-in option, more people are tempted to use it because it doesn’t bring them to another page on your site. Whatever you choose to do, it is important to remember that for the customer, the less work the better! Make sure it is quick and effortless to sign up.
Business Connections
A great way to get a business connection is by receiving business cards from colleagues, however this is so ’98, and we’re not adding people to a Rolodex. People have switched over to LinkedIn to make business connections, curating a long list of potential clients. However with LinkedIn you must pay a fee to export your curated list of emails. In the end, it might be worth it.
The more connections you make the more opportunity you have to succeed. Remember when sending emails to be courteous and always give an option to unsubscribe. No one wants to be badgered with annoying emails they cant get out of.
