29 Ways to Build Your House List

2004 is the year e-marketing is expected to really get tough on spam. With CAN-SPAM, the first federal anti-spam bill effective as of January 1, 2004, it is mandatory that all e-marketers use e-mail and e-marketing best practices to ensure they are protecting their customers and soon-to-be-customers.

If you have been thinking about starting an e-marketing strategy or you have a strategy in place, having the right house list is vital.

We have all heard that there are three keys to an e-marketing campaign - list, creative and offer. If you don't have the right list, you can forget about the creative and the offer as they don't matter. Going after the right target audience is your first key.

In celebration of this leap year, we have created a handy list of 29 things you can do today to increase your targeted house list tomorrow.

The Acquisition Imperative

Every day more companies "discover" e-mail marketing, decide to get in the game and start sending their customers and prospects electronic messages. At the same time, hundreds of other companies send out permission e-mails to a subscriber list that, according to industry averages, is undergoing about 40 percent attrition per year. At that rate, an initial list of 2500 email shrinks by almost 1000 addresses in the first year of existence. This only includes the bounce backs. There is a whole other bucket you have to consider - unsubscribes.

Because you are competing with legitimate marketers as well as spammers, the e-marketing practices you use can result in either obtaining a new customer or winding up on a spam list, being blacklisted by ISPs, and being fined.

Whether starting a new e-mail marketing list or growing an existing list, acquiring new subscribers is a marketing imperative no company can ignore. A growing list of subscribers is paramount to supporting the reach and effectiveness of your e-mail marketing initiatives.

Strategic Foundations

Before pursuing the acquisition of new subscribers, you need to develop a robust e-marketing strategy and the unique value proposition of each e-mail or e-marketing campaign.

As you only know too well, there is no shortage of articles on "e-mail marketing strategy". So, in an effort to not bore you to death and appear redundant, we won't give you another recipe for success. Nevertheless, you are competing with your potential audience's time and need to give people a compelling reason to sign up for your e-communications.

In other words, for giving you their e-mail address, it is your responsibility to give them what you promised, e-mail communications that will help them. Specific reasons may depend on your strategy, your business, and the make-up of your readership.

In addition to providing valuable content, consider rewarding subscribers with a free gift or enticing them with offers and incentives only available through e-mail. And, don't forget to get their input - their feedback will help you improve your communications and retain them as loyal readers, future customers, or existing customers.

Endless Opportunities

If you're ready to offer or are currently producing an e-newsletter or other e-communications for your company and you've committed to e-mail as a strategic e-marketing initiative, now is the time to offer every single opportunity for people to subscribe to your house list.

In addition to building your house list, the e-mail addresses that you obtain are leads that you can take through your buying cycle.

We frequently find interesting newsletters and spontaneously go to their web site to find a way to subscribe and read more. If visitors can't easily figure out how to subscribe, most will just leave.

Here are several ways to for you to make it easy for people to subscribe to your e-communications, generate leads and to convert readers to subscribers - both on-line and off.

Remember, obtaining the e-mail address is the first step, convincing them to get your e-communications is the next step.

29 Online and Offline Ways To Build Your House List