An email list of your customers and potential customers is one of the most valuable things you can have.  In almost every case companies with such a list generate far more sales at far lower cost per sale, than those without such a list.

And yet most companies don’t have such a list – or if they do have it, they don’t keep it up to date, and don’t use it.

The reason why many firms don’t have such a list is that they are not sure how to put one together.  The reason why they don’t use the list when they have it is because a) they think it is not complete and b) they don’t have the technology to send out the emails.

So, I am going to try and answer both points in this, and my next email.

First, how to put such a list together:

There are five ways of doing it.

1: Go to your existing customers and potential customers and tell them that there is a free newsletter available from you.  Tell them what the newsletter contains (in some detail – not just generalities), extol the benefits, remind them that it is free, and confirm the basics (that they can leave at any time, and that their email address will never be given to any one else.

2: Make the sign up easy.  I mean really easy.  If you want to see an example of a dead easy sign-up go to www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and you’ll see approach that we have set up.

3: Write to potential customers and offer them something free – such as a report or article that will be of great interest to them.  But point out that to get it they have to email you.  Then add each of these people to your email list of subscribers.

4: Go through your customer and enquirers list and extract all the email addresses that you can from that.  Ask all your new customers to give you their email address as part of the order process so you can get back to them quickly if there is any problem with the order.  If orders come through a central ordering department ask for the email of the originator, in case there is a question about the detail of the product.

5: Advertise the newsletter on your web site – on virtually every page.

You might feel that one or two of these approaches are not appropriate for you – fair enough – but I really don’t know any companies for whom none  of the approaches is any good.

Companies that are part of our Velocity programme can have the building of such a mailing list as part of the work we do for them each month.  There’s details on www.velocity.ac – but you can of course do it yourself.

Coming up next: how to run the newsletter.  But if you would like to talk to me, do give me a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.