Your list is one of the most vital parts of your email marketing campaign.It doesn’t matter how great your offer or sales message is, if you don’t send it to the right people, it won’t work.

The quick option is to buy in a list but how can you be sure it is the right audience for your offer? Surely the best way to optimise your campaign’s chances is to use a home-grown list that you’ve developed over time from an interested audience.

So how do you get started?

Well it won’t be a quick process. Building your own quality list will take time. It will involve gathering email addresses from customers which means you have to maximise your opportunities to capture them.

You could:

• Have a sign-up box on every page of your website so your visitors can’t miss it
• Provide a free giveaway that’s of value to capture their email address
• Include a sing-up link in your email signature
• Promote your newsletter on your print materials too. Once  they’ve signed up for your newsletter you have their details to send other offer to as well
• If you use direct mail, send an offer that will drive them to a landing page that requires an email address to access the deal
• Promote your giveaways through social media (such as Facebook or Twitter) to widen your audience
• If you work regularly with other companies see if they would be willing to promote your newsletter within theirs

These ideas are easy to implement and in time will lead to the creation of a high quality in-house marketing list to which you can make offers and provide news and advice to constantly strengthen your customer relationships.

As I mentioned earlier, it will take time to grow your list but it is worth it as the results from your marketing campaigns will be much better than if you simply bought in a list.

Give it a go and see how it works for you.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

I’m sure you know the importance of a list.

No?

OK – quick run down – the best way to market your business is through a list of people who have signed up for your newsletter. But to get people to part with their email address, you have to give them something. For example, it can be a free report, eBook or ‘How to…’ article -something of value.

Right, now that’s explained let’s tackle a problem I know many people have head on.

I need more subscribers!

Let me guess – you’re list isn’t growing. You’ve listed your website on every free advertising site there is out there and you’re even paying for advertising, but the new sign-ups aren’t forthcoming.

Well, you’re not alone. To grow your list you need to employ a long term strategy. One of the best ways of doing this is through article marketing.

Every website and blog owner out there is looking for new content to share with its visitors. A lot of these find what they are looking for from article directories which are a bit like libraries full of free articles they can use (so long as they give due credit to the original author). You’ve probably heard of sites like these – one example is Ezine Articles.

All you need to do is write and submit quality articles to these sites (which, by the way, also generate those all important one way back links to your website which will help your search engine optimisation).

Once you’ve written your article and completed your author biography (like the one I’ve added at the bottom of this post) make sure it links back to the page where you have your sign-up box.

Now, when someone reads your article and wants to know more about you, they’ll follow the link in your bio. This will take them to your page with your sign up box and, with a bit of luck, they’ll like what you have to say and enter their email address.

As a result your list will go and your reputation will spread. And that’s how you can get more subscribers.

Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting, is a professional freelance copywriter with extensive experience in both b2b and b2c markets. For more information on how her copywriting services will help your business grow, email her at sally@briarcopywriting.com for call on +44 1449 779605.