Opt In Email List Building
I never cease to be amazed by the amount of times I see clients throw money away.
In any business the most difficult thing to do, is to get a new customer, so when you get one wouldn’t it be a good idea to treat him or her with kid gloves, nurture them, treat them nicely. After all, you are 50 times more likely to sell something to an existing customer than a new one. YES ! 50 times more likely.
Why do so many businesses treat their customers like “one-offs” then? Make sure you build an ongoing relationship with this person, that way you have a far better chance of selling to them again. In fact this should be one of your overriding aims in your contact with every customer.
If you run an online shop, gathering email addresses is easy, you just have to put a tick box on your checkout that says something like “Allow us to add you to our Newsletter” or “Allow us to send you occasional offer via email”. Don’t call it a mailing list, that sounds impersonal and spammy. Make sure that the word “occasional” or similar is in there, you don’t want to frighten them off.
“But I don’t have an online shop!” I hear you say.
OK then, if your customers mainly phone you, then make it part of the Sales transaction, after all you wouldn’t forget to ask for the Credit Card details would you? Well don’t forget to ask for the email address then.
Same applies for walk-in customers, you will find 90% of your customers will give you an email address fairly willingly. You will maybe need to point out to them “What’s in it for them”, but when they have a chance of money off coupons, or priority notice of sale times, or “Members Only” deals, they will jump at it.
This doesn’t just apply to shops either.
Restaurants, why don’t you give each guest a “comment card” with a space to leave their email address. When they do, put them in autoresponder sequence, where the first message is a simple “Thank you, your comments are appreciated” type message. Then you have the opportunity to email them with Specials, Valentines Day, Xmas etc etc. Even better if you can squeeze their birthday out of them. Send them an email a couple of weeks before hand offering a half price bottle of wine or something to help them celebrate their birthday with you.
Once you have that email address, the possibilities are endless. For some businesses it’s almost like having an on demand Cash Machine.
Switched on business owners know this, but believe it or not less than 5% of businesses do it well. So put your self in the Top 5%.
If you’d like further advice, why not try my Free Ebook on Opt In List Building
Remember ! Get that email address even if at the moment you’re not sure what you will do with it. Having it is 90% of the job done.
