Facebook - Send an email through Facebook to your Facebook fans and friends asking them to join your list. Direct them to the website address where you have your opt-in form hosted and entice them to sign up by giving them a discount or special offer.

Use What You’ve Got – Send everyone on your list of personal friends and business colleagues who know you, an email from you personally asking them to join your list. Don’t forget to include the value they’ll be getting from you, like discounts, coupons or information that is exclusive to them. And since you know them, chances are they’ll join pretty quickly.

Increasing your email marketing database will be manageable and gradually grow over time with regular and consistent work.

All top-ranked sales people share this point of view "It’s my attitude!" Successful sales people love what they do. They love the companies they work for, the products and services they sell, and the clients they serve. They also take personal responsibility for ensuring that all of these points remain true. Here are four simple rules for being honest with yourself.

Nobody can choose your attitude for you. In trying times, the only way to improve your circumstances is by adopting a positive outlook. No matter what extraordinary sales techniques you learn during your career, these will fail you if you don’t believe in yourself, your products, and your market.

The people around you are a direct mirror of your attitude.Attitude is contagious. Think of it as the law of human magnetism.

Maintaining a good attitude is easier than regaining one that’s lost. If you already have a good attitude, great! Do everything you can to maintain it. Read positive books and listen to motivational tapes.

Only you can choose your attitude, so it’s up to you to change it.

To achieve your maximum potential, you must first be honest with yourself. Prove your integrity with your words and actions. Find time to prospect every day. Remember that all business is personal. Take it personally so you improve faster. Don’t treat any prospect as if it’s a sure thing. Nothing’s certain. And work on your attitude every day. It absolutely affects your sales results.

1 Get it online
It takes a bit of effort for someone to log on to Yelp or Amazon to leave a review, and the longer it’s been since they’ve bought from you or been in your store, the less likely it is they’ll take the time to do it. Instead of asking for the review when they get home, try setting up a computer terminal that encourages customers to post an online review right from your store. If you can get the review right at the moment they’ve seen your best stuff, you’ve got a great shot at getting some awesome online word of mouth.

2. Get it in writing
Have a simple way for customers to leave an old-fashioned, hand-written testimonial before they walk out the door. Develop a simple card that your customers can fill out on the spot. Asking for a quick, handwritten note from your fans is a simple way to get instant testimonials that you can use on your website, direct mailers or brochures… or even a customer “Brag Book”.
 
3. Get it on video
Few things are as effective and authentic as an in-the-moment video review from one of your customers. Businesses like restaurants, bars, concert venues, and small shops could set up a little booth for customers to leave a video review that could later be posted on your website and shared in your newsletters — as could service companies apply this technique by giving their repair and installation crews a camera to gather feedback when they’re out in the field. And though not everyone will be up for being on tape, why not have the option available for your most enthusiastic fans?

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.  

Successful email marketing starts with a foundation and uses the email to drip the story, to have it gradually unfold. That foundation requires an entrance strategy to greet new prospects and set up expectations for the relationship.

After the customer has registered for future emails, downloaded your whitepaper, or entered your sweepstakes, there often is nothing to enhance that relationship. Companies need to think about what should happen next.

Research shows the first three emails are the most critical. There should be an introductory message in which customers accept an invitation and give permission for future communications, followed by a second that sets up customers’ expectations by explaining future benefits (discounts, coupons, or high-value informational newsletters). The third should begin to deliver on their expectations by sending the promised newsletter, whitepaper, or discount offering.

TouchStone MarketPoint! Successful marketing should start with a sound strategy for building a customer relationship. It does not have to be complex to be effective, just consistent.

Get Permission
Email is one of the most powerful and yet one of the most dangerous mediums of communications we have. Virtually everyone uses it and in business-to-business marketing everyone you want to reach has access to email. It’s also very inexpensive and it can easily be built into existing marketing systems. But of all media, it is the one where it’s most critical that you have explicit permission.

Without permission you not only risk losing customer goodwill and inviting CAN-SPAM penalties, you could end up blacklisted by ISPs that refuse all mail coming from your domain if spamming complaints have been lodged against you.

Permission is not difficult to get. Offer something of value–a coupon or promise of special discounts, a whitepaper or informational newsletter–in exchange for the customer agreeing to receive your messages and, often, to provide valuable personal information and preferences. Sign-up can be done on a Web site or on paper forms distributed at trade shows and conventions or by traditional mail, resellers, and affiliated organizations in a business network.

TouchStone MarketPoint! Be a smart marketer and recognize that customer loyalty is earned through personal messaging, asking permission and consistent effort.

*Seth Godin

Temperature-taking measures used for several years to track whether email was gaining or losing respect as a marketing tool is showing that the attitudes of marketing organizations toward email during the 2009 budget-making process – 75% respondent fall into the categories of “invest a bit more each year” or “invest to stay on top”.

*Excerpted from 2009 eMail Marketing Benchmark Guide

Ask questions your target audience would be interested in. As they read the question, or at least your profile, they should know you are in sales, so don’t try to hide that. Be genuine, and ask questions that they either can answer or would want to know the answers to.

Answer questions your target audience would be interested in. Sometimes it might be easier to do this, since you don’t have to think of new questions on a regular basis. Think about how others will perceive you based on your answer. Answer comprehensively, kindly, and with expertise. Share information and recommend other experts, including your clients and prospects. Get questions asked in answers via RSS so you learn about opportunities to chime in without even logging in to Linked In.

Join Groups where your audience is, or where their contacts are. Participate in Group Discussions, but more importantly, browse through group members to look for contacts to add to your network and communicate with. Send group members messages with clear, concise messaging—focus on the relationship, but let them know why you want to connect and what you have in mind.

Set up the RSS feed so you get Network Updates delivered to you as soon as possible. Reach out to your contacts as they have news, congratulating them on accomplishments, asking them about changes, commenting on new connections, etc. Use the Network Updates as an opportunity to reconnect and further brand yourself.

Consider advertising on Linked In. Their new advertising feature gives you the ability to choose certain types of Linked In users. It’s comparatively expensive, but the ads go in front of a demographic that is supposedly above average in regard to income, professional status, and decision-making power.

• If your profile isn’t complete, I might not trust who you are when you reach out to me. Add relevant information that helps me learn about you, and maybe even trust you.
• Search is your friend. List some keywords your target segment would have in their profile, including position/role, company, industry, interests, associations, etc.
• Grow your network shamelessly. Okay, I mean that with some humor. Don’t blindly add people to your network. But if you want to use LinkedIn for sales, it makes sense to have a large network.
• Grow your network strategically. Do you sell merchandise in one industry? You should grow your contacts from that industry. Don’t worry about their title as anyone such as a receptionist in your target industry might have excellent contacts.
• Target contacts from adjacent industries. They should have contacts in your target industry. Your growth strategy could also include certain types of professionals, such as accountants, CFO’s, or professionals in a defined geographical area, if your target audience is geographically based.
• Ask for introductions from your connections. When you do searches, make sure to include your first-degree contacts as you reach out to prospective contacts. As you do this, you’ll put your messaging top-of-mind with your first-degree contacts, and as they agree to help you, you’ll strengthen your relationship with them.  
• Make sure to nurture individual relationships so you don’t just take-take-take in the relationship.

Make a habit of collecting emails to add to your list. Just remember that you are building a permission-based list, which means a person must give their permission before being added. Here are some tips for growing your list.

• A visitor sign-up box to use on your website
• A "Send Page to Friend" link for your website
• A special feature that allows your subscribers to forward your email and add a personal note to their friends
• Have a sign-up sheet available at your place of business
• Train employees to collect addresses and permission at every point of contact
• Collect addresses at trade shows and events
• Collect business cards of people who request information

 

TouchStone MarketPoint! Collect Emails Every Chance You Get