I always argue that the most valuable asset a company can have these days is a list of customers and potential customers who have shown an interest.

Those are people who have had a quote, or asked for more detail or actually bought something.

If you have a list of them, and can gather that list together and send those people something every week, then you will keep them happy.

It is not an expensive operation (if you would like to talk about it, do give myself or one of my colleagues a call) and not that difficult to set up (although there are one or two key points to keep in mind).

But my customers often reject the notion saying – “You can’t write to people each week – they will all unsubscribe!  I was thinking of writing once every six weeks.”

What is interesting is that some people who say that are subscribers to one or more of the news services I run, through which people get maybe four or five emails a week from me.  Yet they don’t unsubscribe.  In fact our unsub rate is quite low.  (If you are not on one of these news services and would like to join there are details on http://www.hamilton-house.com/gateways/newsgroups.html – they are all free.)

But the unsubscription remains low, I believe, for two reasons.

First because I try and change the subject quite regularly, and second because I try and write in a lively way.  Of course you may feel that is untrue – in which case my apologies – but the fact is that the number of people leaving the list is low – even though details of how to leave the list are printed at the end of the emails.

So when it comes to stopping people unsubscribing, I think the answer is to give the readers information that might be of interest on a regular basis.  Not straight sales info, but background about your product or service.

True, no one will read everything, but you might get the reader interested enough to make him/her one day pick up the phone and buy something.

If you want to know more, call 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood