Email newsletters and other marketing is quite cost-effective, timely and very flexible. But these benefits will do you no good if you don’t have anyone to communicate with in the first place!

How can you grow your email list(s)?

The first step of course is utilizing all the addresses you already have. This means the friends, colleagues and other business associates who reside in your email contact list(s). You should also go through that pile of business cards you’ve been collecting since 1996* in your top drawer.

Next, ask all of your contacts on social media sites to join your list as well. Facebook fan pages, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn accounts, etc. Offer them something of value if they join your list. A special discount or other giveaway could work well.

Lastly, continue to build from there. Make it a point to ask for email addresses from new customers, members, clients, participants or donors. If you provide price quotes as part of your business, add these folks as well. Periodically re-contact your social network, since most people continually add new folks to their networks.

And for those with a large customer base already, create ways to add the email information for all the people you do More >