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Chapter 3. Building a Quality E-Mail List

In This Chapter

• Getting your e-mail database ready

• Gathering valuable contact information

• Attracting e-mail subscribers

• Obtaining e-mail addresses through list brokers

Collecting e-mail addresses isn't an easy task. Some people are so bothered by unsolicited e-mails that they're willing to share almost anything else with you before they will share their e-mail address. Others might give you their e-mail address, but when the e-mails they receive from you don't meet their expectations, they resort to unsubscribing or marking the e-mails as spam, even if they're loyal customers.

Note

Fortunately, an e-mail list needn't be large to be effective. The best e-mail lists are those that contain the names of loyal repeat customers, referral sources who respect others' privacy, and interested prospects who know you and your business well enough to recognize your e-mails.

This chapter guides you through some of the best tactics for building a permission-based e-mail list with a high number of quality subscribers. This chapter summarizes how and where to collect information, what information to collect, and how to prepare your database. A quality list helps ensure that your e-mail messages are received by the people who are most likely to respond with repeat and referral business.

You need to collect permission in addition to collecting contact information in order to send successful e-mails. I cover the details of collecting permission in Chapter 2 of this ...