Yesterday I wrote about ways to use content to build a mailing list. But that’s just part of the equation – you also must KEEP that mailing list. If, once you send an email, your respondents immediately opt-out, then you’ve wasted your time building a mailing list in the first place.

The Technical Aspects:

With anti-spam laws being serious business, you’ve got to make sure that you have explicit permission to send email to each recipient and a smart system for managing your opt-outs. In order to do this, it’s best to use an email marketing program.

• Constant Contact
• Benchmark Email
• ZooCoda (Bloggers)

You may also want to use an autoresponder if you’d like to follow up with your subscribers on regular intervals with pre-written, timed content (for example, a 7 day e-course that arrives each day for 7 days).

• Get Response
• Intellicontact
• Campaigner

Building Strong Relationships

As Seth Goodin explains in his book Permission Marketing:

“Consumers will grant a company permission to communicate only if they know what’s in it for them. A company has to reward consumers, explicitly or implicitly, for paying attention to its messages.”

When someone subscribes to your mailing list, they are already a warm contact and you should address them as such. Use their first name in the email whenever possible and use a more conversational tone.

Meanwhile, promote your products and services – your audience has already expressed interest in them, so feed them with colorful images and benefits-rich descriptions and product explanations.

Also important is to make contact on a regular basis. On an obvious note, the more you make contact, the more you will be in front of your customers. But also, if you wait too long to contact them you may lose the fire of interest you’ve worked so hard to create on your website.

Tags: Marketing //