Email Marketing Guide
Best Practices for Building your E-mail List

The gold is in your email list. Its quality and management are essential for a financial return from any email marketing. But, how do you go about building a good-sized email list? Here are seven wise ways that you can use to start building your own large list of email addresses.

Give Away Something Free
You have to give in order to get. If you want people to offer up their email address, you`re going to have to offer up an incentive. Nothing works better than something that`s complimentary. You can give away no-cost reports, books, software, or even sample pages of a book.

Use A Subscription Form On Your Home Page
Pop-ups are one of the most common methods you can use to capture email addresses and build your email list quickly and with ease. Simply construct a web page containing code for a form and set the page to open when visitors enter or exit your site.

Make sure the pop-up offer is something that`s valuable enough to motivate visitors to take time to give you their contact information. Your offer can be a complimentary newsletter, report, download, or ebook that arrives instantly through your autoresponder to their email inbox when they give you their email.

Be cautious when using pop-ups. Most computer users consider them to be annoying. Multiple pop-ups on a site can turn off a potential customer, so limit yourself to one pop-up per site.

Use Postcards
If you have a mailing list that contains street addresses, convert it into an email list by sending out a postcard that invites people to visit your web site to receive a gift of some kind -- a report, a discount coupon, etc. Visitors don`t have to pay in order to receive their gifts, they simply need to enter an email address. It is a win-win. They receive something of value and so do you.

A postcard is much less expensive to mail than a standard-size letter. (Not only are they economical, postcards are more likely to get your message across since the consumer does not have to open an envelope.) For postcard marketing click here.

Place A Subscribe Button On Every Page Of Your Web Site
This simple practice is often overlooked. Put a response form on every page of your website offering a newsletter or other freebie. This will increase the number of email addresses you capture exponentially.

Because a visitor may come directly to a page on your web site other than your home page. If you only have a subscriber box on your home page, you may miss many potential subscribers.

Use Contests
Contests are a great way to generate traffic and buzz for your business. Create a contest and put a form on your site or in a pop-up box. The entry 'fee' is their email address.

Becuase contests are so effective at generating attention, realize that not all the people who sign up for your contest are good prospects. Some are just contest 'junkies' -- people who are only looking for freebies and have no intention of buying a product or service.

Warning to the Wise: If your prizes are cash or large-ticket items, check with local agencies to make sure you conform to state laws.

Display Your Autoresponder Address
Most people give their web site URL on their marketing messages. To be one step ahead of the game in collecting email addresses, list your autoresponder address instead of your URL. This way you can capture email address and funnel them into your follow-up sales letters.

Just Ask
If you`re speaking with a prospect on the phone or a potential customer stops by your place of business, simply ask for an email address or business card (which usually includes their email address).

For Covenant Designs' savvy integrated marketing solutions, both in direct mail, email marketing and search engine marketing, call us direct at 214-703-0360. Our free consultation will do wonders for your bottom line.

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