Building Mailing Lists: 7 Ways to Grow Your List From Scratch
The harsh reality is that most people who visit your web site for the first time won’t
buy anything at all. Even if they do stick around, it usually takes a few visits or
contacts for anything to happen.
They need to get to know you. They need to get to know your product or service.
And this can take time, especially if a large exchange of money is involved.
To get them to return, you need to get those visitors to volunteer their contact
information to you. Once they opt-in to your mailing list, there are dozenseven
hundredsof ways you can politely keep in touch and encourage them to return
over and over again.
But people aren’t that freewheeling with their personal information these days. So
give them something they can use in exchange for a little of their information. And
make your offer so prominent on your home page, that they can’t miss it and would
be crazy not to take you up on it.
There are a variety of approaches you can take to make this happen. The key is just
to give them something of value for free so they have no reservations about
releasing some contact information.
Here are 7 ideas to get you started.
1. Offer information. Everybody likes to learn something new, especially
if it can give them a leg up in their business. So take something of value that you
know and package it into a free report.
It doesn’t have to be long and involved. The topic just needs to be enticing enough
for your visitors to want to read. In exchange for their information, let your visitors
download the report as a PDF. Even better, offer to mail it to them if they will supply
their physical address.
2. Offer a newsletter. I know first hand that people are more than willing
to share their information to subscribe to a newsletter that interests them. And if
you keep providing useful information, they’ll stick with you for years to come.
3. Offer a consultation. If you’re in a service- based business, exchange
a chunk of your time and expertise. I offer a complementary 20-minute consultation
for new prospects. One of my clients is a personal trainer who offers a fitness
evaluation to serious inquiries. You get the idea. The time spent on the
consultations is often nothing compared to the dividends the contact information
can pay in the long run.
4. Offer a demo. If you have a product-based business, find a way for
your prospects to get a demo in exchange for their information. Software trials can
be easily downloaded off of a website. Or in exchange for a physical address, you
can send an informational DVD or videotape.
5. Offer faster shipping. Tell your visitors to opt-in and their first order
will get overnight shipping on the house. This might require some backend work,
but it’s nothing a good shopping cart system can’t handle.
6. Offer a catalog. No matter how much the Internet invades our lives,
people still enjoy the experience of a physical product catalog. It’s just too hard to
“curl up” with a web site, no matter how interesting it is. But visitors will spend the
time to get cozy with a catalog if they like what’s inside.
7. Offer a brochure. This falls along the same lines as the catalog, and it
gives you a chance to really go into detail selling your product or service. Best of all,
a brochure might end up sitting on a prospect’s desk for days at a time a constant
reminder to get back in touch with you and place an order. Or it could just as easily
get passed along to a friend or colleague.
The importance of your mailing list cannot be overstated. These are people who
have expressed interest in your products or services, and invited you to stay in
touch with them. While you should never take advantage of this permission, you
should do everything in your power to make the most of it.
(c) 2006 by Cory Fossum. All rights reserved.
Cory Fossum is an award-winning direct response copywriter and marketing
consultant. For more FREE marketing thoughts, tips, and strategies like these, visit his
website at http://www.fossumcreative.com and sign up for his monthly newsletter,
Cory Fossum’s Call to Action.
