How to Gain a Customer Base From Mailing Lists?

by Lil Waldner

Published on this site: August 24th, 2005 - See more articles from this month

Building up email address lists of potential and real customers is important in order to convert traffic into sales. People who are interested in the issue of a website can be informed regularily about special offers and news. A good email address list of buying customers is a good tool for the customer relationship management.

Different sources of catching mailing lists:

1. A smart and correct way to begin
   
   Opt in email lists or safelists are a smart and correct way to build up an email address list from scratch with potential customers. These lists are well maintained and updated. The people on the address list have approved to receive promotional mailings. Targeted email lists are available. The email services do the mailings through their systems. The merchant does not need a software and bandwith for an email server. Everything is hassle free. The response by the audience is affirmative, if the mailings are appealing.
   
   
2. Bulk Email Lists
   
   New website owners often try to generate traffic quickly with the use of bulk email lists. Email lists with up to millions of email addresses are offered. The response to such mailings in bulk is often low. Some addresses are outdated, some mailings are filtered out by Anti-SPAM-Systems, some people get upset by the mailings. Merchants take the related risks, if they expect that about 200 of 100,000 addressed people buy a lot.
   
   
3. A sly trick
   
   Some merchants collect email addresses about other merchants in the internet. They check the email addresses of classified ads or other kind of ads. There are names and email addresses on all classified ads. This merchants send their offers to the other merchants in the hope to find an interested audience in them. I get this kind of mailings almost daily. These people, however, display their email addresses to me and they offer me a chance to re-invite them to my website or special affiliate program.
   
   
4. Clever and appreciated
   
   Web sites can offer the interested audience to sign up for free services, e.g. a newsletter about tips or specials, tutorials, ebooks, games. The people who sign up are usually interested in this kind of services and show some sympathy to the website. Most of the people do not buy after the first visit of a website, but a lot of people appreciate it to receive attention. Some of them buy sooner or later from a website, if the website owner can keep in touch with them by regular mailings.
   
   
5. Customer relationship management
   
   Email address lists that have been gathered from potential or buying customers have to be maintained carefully. The audience should be provided with regular mailings about recent news and special offers. A broad base of buying customers is a valuable asset of every business. It is an old wisdom: It's easier to stay with loyal customers than to gain new customers.

Lil Waldner is a business economist. She is experienced in project management and marketing. She has worked as editor of newspapers and she has written booklets and essays with economic and public issues. Visit her web sites: http://affiliatechain.com/GetASite.asp?ID=51105 or http://www.omnisend.biz