As a business owner, you have no doubt heard about list building and its benefits to your business. Having a list means having a group of people who are interested in you and what you are offering. This is a great way to promote new product launches, increase customer loyalty and get to know your customers.
It’s very easy to begin building a quality list. The following 4 steps will get you started.
- Sign up for an account with an Email Service Provider (ESP). While it is not necessary to have an account with an ESP, it will save you a lot of headaches in the future. They offer many advantages including better deliverability of your emails, list management to organize your contacts, professional looking email templates and tracking statistics to measure your email marketing success. There are many different ESPs to choose from. Some even offer starter accounts for a limited number of subscribers at no cost.
- Decide what information to collect from subscribers. You can request just about any information you want from your subscribers when they sign up, but I would recommend keeping it to a minimum. The less information you request from a person, the more likely they are to subscribe. People don’t have time to fill out long forms and privacy is a concern to everyone. If possible, try requesting only email addresses or email and name.
- Put an opt in box on your website. This is another area where your ESP will come in handy. An opt in box is a form generated by your ESP that you put on your website to collect contact information from your visitors. If your visitors decide they want to receive communication from you on a regular basis, they opt in, or give you permission to do so, by providing their name and email address. Most ESPs will create an opt in box for you and provide you with the HTML code to put it on your website.
- Offer subscribers an incentive for signing up. People get a lot of junk mail these days and are skeptical of signing up to receive more email in their already clogged inbox. Offering subscribers something of value in return for their contact information will increase the number of people willing to sign up. Another benefit to offering an incentive to subscribers is that it can increase loyalty and encourage referrals of new business.
By implementing these steps, you will be on your way to building a quality list that will continuously benefit your business. But don’t stop here! Once you have subscribers, you need to provide them with valuable content to keep them interested in you and your business.
Jennifer Salie, owner of Superior Collaborations, works with busy entrepreneurs who want to grow their business by building an online presence. As a result of working with Jennifer, her clients enjoy an increase in their client base and more time to serve and interact with their clients.
You can learn more about building an online presence for your business by signing up for Jennifer’s free e-course designed for the busy entrepreneur, “5 Quick Tips for Building an Online Presence” at http://www.superiorcollaborations.com.
