As an online marketer, you have to be able to understand how to build up a solid customer base. The perfect business does not build itself, and it doesn’t happen overnight, either. You have to invest the time and effort to make it something that is going to work well. Building a marketing list is one important part of the process, but, then using that list effectively is another important part that should not be forgotten.
Should You Buy or Build Marketing Lists?
There are different schools of thought when it comes to the methods that are best for building marketing lists. What it boils down to, is that you have to be able to truly put yourself in the place of the consumers that you are targeting. How would you want to be contacted and courted as a consumer yourself? Your inbox is likely chock full of the latest and greatest offers, and many of them go ignored for various reasons. You might be simply too busy to attend to each one. You might not be ready to make a purchase at that time. You might not be interested in that particular offer. You might be tired of hearing from that specific company and just delete the message for now. There are tons of reasons why emails might go unopened or unaddressed, these are only a few of the common ones.
These reasons are certainly ones that would help the argument that you should build email marketing lists, not purchase them. Purchased lists often contain large numbers of emails that belong to people who are just on a lot of lists, after opting in to only a few. These are the people that are less likely to respond to your offers, because they may not be fully interested, or they just might not be ready to make a purchase at the moment. Or, they are not familiar with your company or your brand, so they pass you over.
However, when you are first starting out with internet marketing, sometimes buying a marketing list can help you get started. It is difficult to start from scratch using only a bulk email opt in, when you might not be getting the traffic numbers that are required to build up a great list quickly. The key to purchasing a marketing list is to work with a very reputable list marketing company, one that is not known for the practice of building up large lists and selling them, often without the knowledge of the recipients. This type of practice will set up your company for failure, and you will end up being reported as a spammer—a serious punch for any internet marketer, because recovering from this reputation is not easy.
If you are going to buy a marketing list, then invest the money in the future of your company and purchase one that comes from a reputable list broker, one that can provide you with a valid list of willing recipients and good leads. From that list, you can cultivate your own list, by combining the recipients that respond by using your own bulk email opt in, as well as the new customers and marketing leads you can get on your own from the traffic to your site. Having a great email list means that you have a large number of people who want to read your emails, and are happy to hear from you.
Guarantee Privacy
As you gain members for your own marketing list, you have to make sure that you encourage them to stay. One way to do this is to assure them at the time that they are signing up for your email marketing list that you will never sell, rent or give away their email address without their explicit permission. This is very important to most people, again, because most people are tired of receiving endless streams of offers into their email inboxes that come from places they never signed up to receive email from. Also, it is helpful if you can give them an idea about how often they can expect to hear from you.
Most people do not want emails from you every day, but weekly or a few times a month is usually an acceptable frequency. Not only should you make these promises and guarantees, but it is very important that you live up to them, too. Otherwise, you will not connect with those leads, and they will not be inclined to open your email anyway.
Make It Simple and Irresistible
When presenting your bulk email opt in form to your potential email leads, keep it as simple as possible. You can collect more information from the members of your email list later, but starting with a first name and an email address may make it simple enough for them to try out a membership in your email marketing list. Asking for too much information up front will most likely be a turnoff, and you will not see the increase in numbers that you are hoping for.
Maintaining Your List
Although your goal is to build an email list that is extensive, it is important that it only contains good, solid leads. If some of those leads become dead from chronic non-response, non-deliverability or other reason, then delete them from your marketing list. Also, always include an unsubscribe option to the recipient so that if they should change their mind, they will not continue to receive emails from you. This is an annoying practice, and will not help you to build trust and confidence with your leads. Always honor the unsubscribe request promptly.
Never hassle the members of your marketing list, and respect them as potential leads. Developing a great marketing list for your internet business is important, but it does take time. Most empires do not develop overnight, so you have to be patient and persistent if you want it to work out and help you go further with your small business internet marketing goals.