Within the internet marketing industry you hear this a lot: The money is in the list. It doesn’t matter if you’re collecting email addresses from email signups or from your contact form, if they want to get your newsletter it means they like what you have to say. These prospects have moved from browsing to tire kicking, and that makes them extremely valuable! The worst thing you can do is collect their email address and do nothing.
If you send your email newsletter out only once a quarter or once a month, it can be a long time before for an interested person gets anything from you. By the time they do, they may have forgotten all about having singed up in the first place, or worse yet, their needs have already been filled by someone else. If you send your email newsletter out even less frequently or with no apparent schedule, your list will get stale and you’ll never see any return on your email marketing efforts.
Here’s how to prevent your list from spoiling:
1. Have an auto responder.
Most email providers give ways to send an email out automatically. You need to take advantage of this tool to send your latest email, or an introductory message to the subscriber right away. Take this opportunity to let them know when your next email is coming, and how they can find out more about you in the meantime (blogs are great resources for this!).
2. Email addresses that are 6 months – 1 year old should get a special email.
Don’t just hit their inbox assuming that they will remember you. Let them know that they signed up, and then make the email more personal. Remember, email marketing is all about building and keeping relationships. This will help keep them from flagging your email as SPAM too, which can get you kicked off your provider’s service.
3. Email addresses that are 1 year or older need to renew their subscription.
You wouldn’t call someone you haven’t talked to in a long time and immediately start asking them for favors right? Then you wouldn’t send your email to old contacts and ask them to buy from you. Reintroduce yourself, and ask them to renew their subscription. This is a good way to tell who’s still interested in your product or service. A lot can happen in one year – people move, change jobs, cancel their email accounts, etc.
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1 Comment
Charmaine | March 10, 2010
These serve as a good reminder to me. Thanks.