eMail Marketing – Building Your Mailing List

The very best way to get permission is to have your best customers and your biggest fans ask their friends to sign up.  This results in a self-screened database of prospects who are probably interested in your offering.

That is how Tom Sant built a mailing list that now numbers 35,000 for his newsletter, "Messages That Matter." According to Sant, author of Persuasive Business Proposals and Giants of Sales, "We simply began by following up with people we met at trade shows or on sales calls and asked them, ‘Would you like to get a tip from us every few weeks about how to do your proposals better?’ We made it clear that people shouldn’t be getting this if they didn’t want to."

Include a subscribe link in all your mailings so new readers have a means of signing up when their friends forward it to them. Your mailing list will "grow organically", because people will pass it around. You can create an entire network of people who are getting messages. It’s very effective and will strengthen your position as thought leaders or recognized experts in the field.

TouchStone MarketPoint! Showcase a sample newsletter on your website, have a downloadable PDF and display at your place of business – right next to a signup sheet.