How to build targeted email marketing lists
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Welcome to the third instalment of Marketing Monday! If you missed the first two posts you can read them here:
The topic for this month is turning subscribers into buyers.
This week I’m going to let you in on some secrets on how to make sure your email marketing list is targetted.
Although many readers will know the importance of building your list up, you may not be aware of how a highly targeted opt-in list will give you much greater rewards.
First, think about who is your business’s target market. Knowing who these people are and what they value not only gives you something to focus on, but will help you find new contacts that will be interested in the information you have to provide.
Start with a broad topic – is your site about parenting, online shopping, business information or services, or something else? From there, think about the more specific areas of your business. What is the unique services/products and qualities that you focus on. By narrowing down your area of expertise you’ll have a well defined niche to market to, rather than loads of broad ‘hit and miss’ exercises.
Don’t be alarmed if you see people unsubscribing at first, it’s much better to have a highly targetted list of a few hundred than a huge mailing list who aren’t really interested in what you have to say.
If you would like to have more than one newsletter, you might want to break your niche into smaller chunks again – for example ‘babies’ and ’school aged’ or ‘home business’ and ’small/medium enterprises’. This will allow you to send highly targetted information to these smaller segments of your list. Some email marketing software also allows you to create segments within your list that you can automatically send to without having to bother with a whole new mailing list.
Once built, a targeted and specific niche mailing list is the key to making money from your list. Specialising makes it easier to become the expert and provide a range of highly targetted, quality information.
Once your subscribers gain that feeling of trust with you, they will recommend your site or mailing list to their friends. This is one of the great ways your list will keep growing; only now it’s with people you know are very interested in what you have to offer.
