5 Easy Ways to Build Your Small Business Email List
December 27, 2009
Congratulations! Your New Year’s resolution is to get serious about marketing your small business. 
And you’ve been reading my blogs, so you know that email marketing is a fun, effective and inexpensive way to do it. So now you’re tasked with building your email list. Where do you start? Here are 5 tips to get you started.
1. Put a Guest Book in your store, office and/or on your website and ask people to sign it. Put a space for their email address with the message, “Would you like to receive offers and special members-only discounts from us? Join our mailing list!”
2. When you are networking and people hand you their business card ASK if they want to be included in your newsletter and/or special offers email list. Don’t put everyone who hands you a business card on your email list – believe it or not, that’s illegal.
3. Give something away for free. Either in your store, office or on your site; offer a free report, a free gift, a free session, for example. It can be a raffle or something you give to everyone who signs up (if you do this, make it easy and inexpensive, a white paper is perfect). It doesn’t have to be much, something educational, like a report or a free consultation – or anything a client or potential client will consider valuable and useful. Make it clear that when they agree to enter the drawing they will also be agreeing to receive emails from you.
4. Put an opt in form on your website and Facebook page to sign up for a newsletter or special “members only” events and offers and drive traffic to it in your email signature, business card, signs in your office or store and in your social media accounts like Twitter.
5. Go through your outlook list or rolodex and contact each person one by one, asking for permission stay in touch via email more often. You can let them know that you publish a newsletter or send out special members only deals and you would hate for them to miss out.
Remember – as a small business, there are laws governing email. No matter how tempting it may be, never add people to your list who did not give you permission. Not only is it unprofessional and impolite it’s illegal.
If you have any questions about email marketing, list building or marketing in general, we’re here to help. Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@FortuneMarketingCompany.com
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Happy New Year!
Practice Stay in Business Marketing
December 20, 2009
Have you seen the home page of my website? I wonder what your reaction was the first time you saw it. Well, there is a story behind that idea, and here it is.
Early in my advertising selling career, I’d come back from a day of pounding the pavement visiting small business owners in Vallejo and Fairfield, CA frustrated that no one wanted to buy newspaper advertising. I’d plop in a chair in my sales manager’s office and tell her about my rough day: “Ok, today sucked, no one can afford to advertise, they think they don’t need it, or say it’s too expensive…”
Her advice? “Ok – well then tell them you’ll see them when they’re ready to advertise their “Going Out of Business Sale.” I’d laugh nervously. I couldn’t say that if I wanted to keep my job and my reputation as a sales professional!
Was it Bad Advice?
As bad as that tongue-in-cheek advice was, over time I realized she wasn’t wrong. Many small business owners who told me they couldn’t afford it or didn’t need it or said it wasn’t where they wanted to spend their money- came running to me when it was time to announce to the world that their business had failed. Suddenly their going out of business sale popped up in every advertising medium in town, where they’d been absent before. Miraculously, NOW they found the money to advertise! And suddenly, every medium in town was exactly the right place for them to advertise! Wow, what changed?
My Consumer Experience
A couple of years ago, I got a postcard in the mail. Addressed to me, it was from the furniture store I had bought my sofa and loveseat from 2 years earlier. Yup, they were going out of business – and yup, this was the very first time I’d heard from them since I made my purchase. It absolutely amazed me! They’d had my information for 2 whole entire years and waited until now to contact me? They never once called or wrote or emailed to ask if I was happy with my purchase, or to tell me about a sale on lamps or rugs or coffee tables to accessorize my lovely new sofa and loveseat. Never once a simple “thank you for being our customer” ! And now, here they are going out of business!!! Hmmmm…
The ironic thing is – if these businesses had put the energy and resources into promoting their businesses that they put into promoting its failure, they probably would have survived!
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late to Nurture Relationships
So this is the story I am trying to tell with my website. I want to stop other small business owners from making these same mistakes. That does NOT mean you should start buying advertising from every sales person who walks in your door – quite the opposite really. The story I’m trying to tell is this: don’t wait until it’s too late to find the money or the right time to invest in your business. Don’t wait for someday… someday is not a day on the calendar and it will never come.
Don’t let your only communication with customers and prospects be the one announcing your going out of business sale. There are so many simple and inexpensive things you can do to build and nurture relationships. Short on money? Make a few phone calls in your down times to past customers to say “thank you” and offer a discount on their next shopping trip. Or call them to let them know you just got a beautiful new lamp in that would go nicely with the sofa they just bought. Or send out a monthly newsletter with info and ideas and fun facts. But in order to do all this, you must become diligent about collecting information. Keep records of all your customers, get prospect information and build a list – and don’t wait until you are going out of business to use it!
What Do You Think? I’d love to hear from you on this. What is your experience? Do you have any inexpensive ways to build and nurture relationships with customers and prospects that you’d like to share? I’d even love to hear your feedback on my homepage. What did you think when you saw it for the first time? Did it ring true to you? Make you think? Feel free to comment away!!!
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Have a very wonderful Holiday!
There’s No Magic Pill for Growing a Small Business
December 13, 2009
We are constantly bombarded with advertising rich with promises of quick-fixes to all that ails us. Consider the sheer volume of television ads and infomercials that promise us the body of an anorexic supermodel if we just buy their magic diet drink or super-amazing turbo thigh-cruncher. No need to exercise or diet- just take a magic pill or use this miraculous fat melting machine “just 5 minutes a day!” and we’ll be thin and our lives will be perfect!
I think we all know, deep down, there is no magic pill or piece of equipment that is going to whip us into shape – at least not for the long term. We didn’t gain that extra 5, 10 or 50 pounds overnight and it certainly isn’t going to come off overnight, despite what the crafty weight-loss industry tries to tell us.
There is No Magic for Growing a Small Business
I’m sorry to tell you – the same goes for growing your small business. There is no magic growth pill that will bring you hordes of new customers. No “undiscovered secret” newspaper, magazine, or website advertising package that is going to make your phones ring off the hook. No creative and clever ad design or layout that will bring you millions of dollars worth of business. No amount of money thrown at the symptom is going to make you an overnight success. The fact is, as with weight loss, we are not going to achieve success until we stop throwing money at the symptom and start addressing the underlying problem. The lack of customers and leads is a symptom of a bigger problem, just like those extra 50 pounds is a symptom of eating too much and not exercising enough.
Address the Problem
What’s the bigger problem? If you know me or have been reading my blogs you probably already know the answer to this. The problem is the absence of a strategic, systematic approach to your marketing. Like weight loss, growing a successful business is a long-term undertaking that requires a commitment to practicing healthier behaviors and habits.
Small business owners come to me every day – like bulging brides who, two days before their wedding discover they don’t fit into their wedding dress – out of money and with expenses that far exceed revenue. Like the bride desperate to shed those 10 pounds in 2 days these small business owners are desperate for revenue (and lots of it) NOW – or they will go out of business. “Can you help me???” Translation – do you have a magic pill to make hordes of people call me or come into my store NOW? Sorry, I don’t.
Stop the Madness!
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Don’t keep throwing money at the symptoms hoping that this new tagline, flyer layout, magazine ad, or offer will be the one to break the bank. It’s not going to happen until you lay the foundation of your marketing strategy. Don’t wait until you only have a couple of month’s worth of expenses in the bank to get help. Do it now while you still have the resources to invest in effective marketing that is going to deliver long-term success. Make a commitment to yourself and your small business for 2010. Commit to throwing away those diet pills that don’t work, killing those yellow page ads that don’t deliver the return you need, and commit to addressing the underlying problems that are blocking your small business growth.
For your small business – do a little work; learn about your business, your industry and your competitors. What are they doing that is working or not working. Find out who your target market is (remember, if it starts with “Anyone Who” you have work to do!). Ask your customers what makes you different from your competitors. Define a core marketing message. Commit to a strategy and a plan! I will leave you with one of my favorite and most inspiring quotes: “Just Do It!”
What are you going to change in 2010 to make your small business a success? We’d all love to hear from you. Please click here to leave your comments.
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