SmallBizResource Blog -- Marketing

11 Ways to Build an E-Mail Subscription List

Posted by Gayle Kesten Thursday, May 8, 2008, 01:52 PM ET

What goes up must keep going up: Starting next week one measly stamp will cost us 42 freaking cents.

The only solution: From newsletters to sales and promos to press releases, conduct as much of your business communications online as possible. And no, my ISP and contacts in the Web biz did not pay me to write that.

The benefits are obvious, but I'll state them anyway: You'll save money on postage. You'll save money on gas to get to the post office. You'll save money on every single office supply involved in producing and mailing a hard copy of whatever it is you want to distribute in the first place. Whatever else I'm missing, I'm sure, also involves money.

Besides, postal mail isn't any more effective than e-mail, which costs about a penny a piece, according to Thomas Harpointer, CEO of AIS Media, an Atlanta-based company that works with SMBs to use the Internet and digital marketing to grow.

"The selling proposition of spending a penny vs. spending 42 pennies to reach that same customer is almost a no-brainer," he said in a Small Business Advocate radio interview. "We're finding that businesses that don't use e-mail to reach their customers typically don't know how to go about it. They don't have the technical capabilities in-house to launch and manage an e-mail campaign."

As far as I'm concerned, as long as I have Outlook running, I have the technical capability to send e-mail, at least to start small and low-cost. The real task is assembling an e-subscriber list. Here are 11 suggestions on how.

1. "Focus on building large, highly relevant lists rather than just gathering a bunch of e-mail addresses," advises Infacta, maker of GroupMail email marketing software. Just remember that quality is more important than quantity.

2. Make it very easy for people to subscribe to your list, says Ronen Yaari, president and founder of Open Moves, an online marketing company based in Huntington, N.Y. "Put it prominently on your Web site so people can see it, then have a link within it that sends them to an example of what they're going to get," he says. "You have to pitch the concept."

3.&4. "Have a link in your e-mail signature that goes to your landing page that describes your newsletter," or whatever it is you're asking customers to subscribe to, Yaari adds. "I also advise my clients to mention their Web sites and a call to join their mailing lists in their voicemail messages."

5.-9. Some other inexpensive, yet simple ways to bulk up your list, courtesy of Business Know-How, include:

Include testimonials on the signup page to show what other say about the publication.

10. From a more proactive point of view, think about the trade shows and seminars you attend. "If you're doing any outreach communication, you should get the email address of anybody with a pulse who's in the vicinity," Yaari says. "Try to opt them in verbally."

11. Another smart idea, from Infacta: co-registration. "Basically, co-registration partners businesses in registration efforts, so that a related product or service provider will ask customers on their site if they would be interested in subscribing to their partners' content at the same time. If the content is relevant to their subscribers, there is a good chance that it will be effective."

Let me know what you're doing to bolster your e-subscriber list.

Marketing

This is a public forum. CMP Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. CMP Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of CMP Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in CMP Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.