Definition
“List building” is an online marketing method used for collecting email addresses from customers and non- customers to engage them on a regular basis and get more traffic to your website. There are multiple ways in which you can use a mailing list for this purpose.
List building is the way of business or professional stays in touch using the internet: with an email address. It can be said that “list building” is a cheap and effective way of keeping and converting customers.
“List building” is an ongoing process that requires you to work your way up to an increasingly larger “mailing list”, one that adds customers and interested prospects over time, and there are many ways in which you can do it.
A “mailing list” is something that you build from getting traffic and word of mouth for your website, and by using all the means that you could get your hands on to build that list. In a way, you already know what “list building” is, so let’s help you use it to make money!
Where does it come from?
You have to remember that electronic commerce, or eCommerce, started as what was known as “online mail order”. It evolved from mail orders from catalogs and magazines from less sophisticated times.
The process was simple, and only needed you to check a physical or online catalog through a website, marking what you wanted to order and then sending out an email specifying those items, then getting back a response.
That’s where the “mailing list” was born. When companies had a significant number of returning customers, they realized that they could build a list of those email addresses provided by the customers.
Then, they used these mailing lists to send out catalogs and updates to customers. Soon, companies that had something to sell started to operate solely through mail orders, and it remained that way for a long time.
However, electronic commerce got refined, and companies started to develop tools that could be implemented into their websites for a streamlined shopping experience, like shopping carts and secure credit card processing systems.
That’s how “mailing lists” evolved from a method of doing business online to an online marketing method. With, mailing lists you can reach your audience without them having to visit your website.
How can your offline business benefit?
You may ask yourself, why use a mailing list for doing business offline? With all of the ways that you can use to communicate and use as tools for setting up reminders, why even bother using email, the first technological platform that allowed online commerce to grow in the first place?
Well, the most obvious answer is because everybody has an email address, and it is the cheapest, most cost effective way in which you can keep in touch with your clients and prospective customers.
By building and managing a mailing list for your offline business activities, you can keep your customers engaged by sending them materials and reminders about what is going on around the block.
You can set up calendars for special offers, create weekly or monthly newsletters and even provide information about stuff that is not necessarily related to what you do, but about something that your customers might be interested in.
Building a mailing list for your offline business will also work as a reminder for your customers and prospects, because who are they going to think about when they need something like what you offer? The business without a mailing list or your up to date company?
How can you benefit as an Independent Professional?
As an independent professional, you need to set up a mailing list and continually make it grow, because this will have a direct effect on how your clients perceive you. A mailing list will make you be perceived as someone who knows how to reach his or her customer base.
You can create a newsletter with information, analyses and updates of what you did or how your activities have progressed in a particular timeframe.
An occasional informational email outside the normal mailing schedule can raise your clientele awareness of your activities when the content provided is relevant to them. Make sure to get to know your customers, so you can create a better rapport with them through your mailing list.Also, by knowing your clients, you can use targeted mail and send out specific content targeted to those customers that are interested in or whose professions and careers revolve around the kind of content you’re sending them.
All of those strategies can be put to good use to make your clients wait for your regular emails. The benefits this will bring you are greater rates of returning customers and of converted users.
How can you make money with it as an online marketer?
List building for online marketers is useful in the way that flyers and marketing on TV and radio is useful for traditional businesses. It is because it reminds people of the offers they may miss! By building an ever growing mailing list, online marketers can get their profits to sky rocket!The most useful way to engage through a mailing list as an online marketer is by sending out offers and updates on existing offers, rebates, lowering of prices and when something is being sold in bulk.
You can also direct traffic to your sites by sponsoring contests and prizes, like to give away an item that is being advertised on your site to the first customer that
