When it comes to implementing an email campaign, build up a list of contacts is one of the most important things you can do to help improve the chances of your online business succeeding. There are a number of different approaches you can take which will help you build up your list of addresses; however you should ensure that any practices you employ are within an established list of regulations and laws. It is a common misconception that the larger your contact list the more sales you will generate. It is far more important to make sure that the email addresses on your list are those of interested, qualified customers. The key here is quality over quantity so with that in mind, here are a few ideas on how to improve your contact list.

You will need to build your email campaign on a solid foundation, and by that I mean you need to choose an email service provider who will be able to adequately handle the demands placed on it by the volume of emails you will be sending out.

It should go without saying that your website should be well designed and intuitive to any new visitor. In order to help build up your mailing list, place an email sign-up call to action in a position where it is clearly visible. It is worth noting that your sign-up request should be placed \’above the fold\’ so that your visitors won’t need to scroll through the whole page before they find what you want them to. As with any conversion process, you should make the task as easy as possible for the visitor as online users are extremely lazy in their habits.

Don\’t just have your email sign-up request on the homepage – make sure that you place it on every single page of your website. You shouldn\’t do anything which will limit the chances of you acquiring new prospects. It will also help if you offer some sort of incentive in return for signing up. Mailing list only offers and discounts are a good idea as is the incentive of a weekly newsletter containing helpful advice.

Don\’t underestimate the advantage of searching for mailing prospects online. If you have a physical shop front then make use of that and ask people to give you their email address at the counter. If you attend industry conferences you will also be able to find prospects there.

Once you have established a mailing list of a reasonable size, try to segment your addresses into different groups. This will allow you to experiment with different variations of your email. You may wish to target different users with different offers. For example, if you notice that certain users aren\’t responding particularly well then you may wish to target those users specifically with specially discounted offers just for them to entice them into using your site again.

Whatever method of email marketing you employ, be sure to make sensible use of your mailing list. The last thing you will want to happen is for customers to unsubscribe from your mailing list because their perception of your emails is spam.

Trevor Richards writes for Extravision (www.extravision.com), a leading UK email marketing company.

Trevor Richards writes for Extravision (http://www.extravision.com), a leading UK email marketing company.

Author Bio: Trevor Richards writes for Extravision (www.extravision.com), a leading UK email marketing company.

Category: Advice
Keywords: email marketing, email campaign, ecommerce, internet marketing, e-commerce, sales, business