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Despite all the marketing options available to small business owners, email marketing is still one of the best ways to raise awareness of your product or service and boost sales.

The success of email marketing is dependent on the size and quality of your contact list. The average open-rate for email marketing hovers around 20%, so if you send 100 emails, only 20 people will look at the email, and an even smaller percentage will purchase your product or service. That is why it is important to have a sizable email contact list to ensure you maximize the potential of your email marketing campaigns.

It is important to remember that size isn’t everything. Even if you had an email contact list with 1 million subscribers but 99.9% were not interested in your product or service, the success of your email campaign would be limited. By only signing up subscribers that are interested in what you have to offer, your results will be much more impressive.

Here are some tips to grow your marketing list with quality subscribers.

Get Email Addresses At The Point Of Sale

You can be sure a customer is interested in your offering if they are already purchasing it from you. If you do a good job, there’s a high chance they will purchase from you again. Try to get your customer’s email address during the sale. If your business is based online, you can include a subscribe box on your website; otherwise, you can ask them for it in person. Tell them that by signing up to your list, they will be the first to know about any sales and will receive exclusive email-only specials.

Start a Loyalty Program

This is a common method used by the largest companies and for a very good reason. It works. A loyalty program makes your customers feel special by offering them exclusive, member-only benefits. You can tempt customers to sign up to your loyalty program (and give you their email address) with a small on-the-spot discount or small gift.

Offer Free Information

You might not think it, but you are probably an expert in your business. You can ask for your customers or potential customers email address in exchange for sharing some of your knowledge. For example, if you are a photographer you could give tips for taking better photos. You could offer a free, small eBook that will be sent to your customers email address or maybe regular, monthly information emails. Your customer will be getting valuable information and more likely to be receptive to your marketing message.

Use Social Media

If you already have a Facebook or Twitter presence, ask your followers to sign up to your email list. Explain that the emails will include exclusive offers just for them. If someone is already following your social media profiles, there’s a good chance they are interested in what you do.

All of the tips above will help to build and large and, most importantly, high quality email list. As your list grows it will become an extremely valuable asset to your business. Eventually you will be able to divide your list up into relevant categories based on demographics or interest and target your campaigns to the right people. There’s no doubt that a large, relevant email list can be a powerful marketing tool, even in today’s world.

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