I've bought an email campaign program, but I've NO EMAILS for it's directory? how do i collect a lot of emails from people whom 'want me to contact them' (target customers) if I'm expected to get individual permission? Where, how, when, or who will be able to help me find emails for my mailing list? Having to do with entertainment, questions, directory links, targets, etc.
Building a list can be done, but it does take some work. Starting your own newsletter with valuable information is a great way to get people to join your email list. People are so wary of giving their email addresses out. You really want to provide them with something of value so they do not think twice about giving you their email address to contact them.
You inspired me to write an article about starting an email list from scratch :-) It's at:
I hope you can get some helpful information out of the article.
Good luck with your list building!
Allison
The last thing you'll want to do is just go adding every e-mail address you find because that's against the law, but it sounds like you know that already, so good job on doing your homework.
I wrote up a blog post sometime back with some of my ideas for getting an e-mail list together. Here's an excerpt with some of those ideas:
* Put the newsletter signup form on your website.
* While you’re at it, you might as well put the newsletter signup link on every page of your website.
* Add a link to your newsletter signup form in your e-mail signature. If you have employees, get them to do it as well.
* Add the newsletter signup link to the invoices your company sends. Sales receipts too!
* Make it worthwhile to sign up. Offer something free to “one lucky subscriber every month,” such as company t-shirts, a free product, a small prize–it doesn’t matter. People just like free stuff!
* Offer a short e-book or whitepaper in return for signing up for your newsletter. Just include the e-book link in the Welcome e-mail.
* Or, offer ebooks or whitepapers directly to your site and include an “ad” for your newsletter right in the document.
* Send out personal, one-on-one inquiries to your customers and colleagues asking if they would sign up for your newsletter. You do business with them every day anyway–just ask!
* On your “Contact Us” page, add a checkbox so they can indicate they’d like to receive your newsletter.
* In your newsletters, ask current subscribers to forward the e-mail to a friend who would be interested in the content. Include the signup link.
