Contacts – the single biggest asset which can prove wonders if utilized effectively. An email list is definitely every web master’s asset. Nothing like having a ready list of contacts who are your potential customers; the ones that will bring in money into your business by purchasing your product or service. Big sales, more traffic, link popularity etc. are some of the benefits that email lists will do to you.
Growing your email list is what is called list building. It requires constant effort over a period of time to build this list of a good number and quality potential people.
Before anything, what is the purpose of you building an email list? What do you seek to gain? Are you building a list to gain more traffic, market your product, share ideas? Your goal plays a role in determining your strategy for list building so that you can align the two.
Now that you have your objectives clear, we can move onto the next step – that is, formulating strategies. But keep one thing in mind, whatever you decide to do for your list building quest, NEVER spam. It is highly unethical and unprofessional.
Here’s another thing you must remember – you cannot just go about inviting people to be a part of your list unless you have something very significant to offer. You must make members’ enrolment worthwhile. Share your subject matter expertise with your list members; be available to your members to revert to you with questions. Establish something noteworthy that you can offer to your members.
Grab every opportunity to interact with people, especially those that are in your field. This will give you a chance to invite these people to your list. So this way, you won’t have merely a bunch of contacts but you will have people who are genuinely interested in what you do or your product. They should be people who are your potential customers or site visitors. Else, there is no point having uninterested, irrelevant contacts in your list. Quality is just as important as quantity.
If you already have a website, then you can have a separate section encouraging visitors to be a part of your website. Make this invitation as attractive as possible and members should know what to expect after signing up.
Remember, just gathering contacts, is not the end of the process. Retaining email is very important. You have to offer something to them continually. You have to remind them that you exist. Provide fresh content and make room for an interest instillation in the minds of your members, always. Refresh this by giving them offers from time to time, sending valuable information, which will interest your members etc.
List building is a wonderful tool to increase traffic, get extremely good sales and high growth provided you use them judiciously. Make the opportunity or break it, the choice lies in your hands!
