When I am presenting a seminar on emarketing or talking one on one with someone who is interested the question of mailing lists always comes up. With questions like:

• What do you do if you dont have a big list?
• What do you do if you don't have email addresses?
• Can you buy lists?
• How can you grow your existing list?

There is no doubt that your data base is a most critical part of your business and absolutely essential for emarketing. My standard reply to these questions is that the best list is your own existing in-house list. This represents people who already have a relationship with your company. Even if in you mind it is small - it is still very valuable and in my opinion is the best place to start. If your business has not been focused on emarketing it is likely that you may not have email addresses for all your data base. But I believe once you see the value of emarketing - quick, easy to do, very cost effective and trackable - it wont be long before you are instructing all your staff to make sure they make every effort to gather the email addresses of your clients and potential clients.
So start with the list you have - make an effort to add new names - then work on the content of your newsletter. If you produce a good newsletter your readers will pass it on for you and this will give others the opportunity to sign up and help grow your list.

If you have a website the most effective way to build your data base is to have a sign up form for your newsletter. When you use our system this sign up form is directly linked to the newsletter list you use to send out your newsletter.
A few things to consider here:

• This is not designed for market research so make the fields that have to be filled in few in number. Surveys show the more fields you require the greater the fall off of potential sign ups.
• Explain what the newsletter is about, how often it comes out and why it would be of interest. Include a link to your privacy statement, and an example of a current edition of the newsletter. Also provide a choice of html or text.
• Test the form yourself to make sure it works as you expect.
• Link to it - make it highly visible in your website and in your newsletter. In Nielsen Norman Group's recent Email Newsletter Usability study they found that the best place to feature links on your website to your newsletter is in the main top or side navigation, and in the footer.
• Make it easy for people to forward - this same study found that 65% of those surveyed said they forward newsletters to others.

• Subscribe form in your signature file
• Include subscribe instructions in your voice mail and on-hold messages
• Include subscription options on all your printed material to customers
• A sign-up sheet at trade shows
• Strategic alliances with complementary companies to cross promote newsletters
• Activate refer a friend link within your newsletter
• Incentives for current members to refer their friends and for new people to sign up
• List your newsletter on appropriate websites
• Optimize search engine - meta tags, key words and topics
• Pay per click Search Engine advertising