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You and I are in agreement that email marketing rocks, right? Once you make that conclusion, the next

logical step is to start thinking about your email list.

Just Start

Some people I talk to want to wait until they “build up a nice list” before they get started in email market-

ing. These are the same people I talk to a year later who are still “getting ready.”

The trick here is to just get started with what you have. Even as an individual, if you start digging you’ll ac-

tually be able to put together 50 to 100 names and email addresses just from people you know. You might

be thinking – hey, this isn’t my target market. Don’t worry, they are your friends and want to support what

you are doing so they’ll be happy to read your newsletter. Besides, they may not be your target market, but

they may know people who are. If they don’t want to get it, they’ll unsubscribe - don’t take it personally.

Then grab that stack of business cards you have in your desk and contact those people one-by-one asking

for permission to stay in touch via email more regularly. Now book yourself a speaking engagement if you

have good content to share and ask attendees to sign up. Before you know it, your list will feel like it’s

growing very fast.

The other reason you need to get started with what you have is that email addresses age and die. If you are

in touch regularly, it allows people to update their email address with you. If you start “next year” many of

your email addresses will already be dead.

Look for Contact Points

What is a “Contact Point”? A Contact Point is the point where you actually meet a client or potential cli-

ent. This could be over the phone, via your website or social networking site, or physically in your office

or store.

Where else are you contacting your customers? At the Point of Sale? During outbound calls? If you are

attending speaking engagements you must collect names and email addresses or you shouldn’t bother even

showing up. (Talk to your Email Marketing service provider about easy and effective ways to capture email

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addresses). Figure out how to give your audience an easy way to sign up for more information via email on

the spot. Do you do deliveries? That’s another time to ask. If you have people that come into your office

or store on a daily basis, come up with some creative ways on capturing their email addresses.

Name your Newsletter

It’s a small thing, but asking people if they want to sign up for your email marketing newsletter isn’t exactly

compelling. “Do you belong to our Savvy Insider’s Club?” however (which is the name of a client’s news-

letter) has much more appeal. Some companies calls theirs the VIP List and who doesn’t want to be a VIP?

Should you Purchase an Email List?

I have conversations all the time with new or prospective clients asking if they can buy an email list from

me. The answer of course is absolutely not - but it’s important that you understand the reasoning behind

the answer.

A purchased email list is a completely worthless investment, is not allowed by us or any other legitimate

email marketing agency, and is against the CAN-SPAM law. Even if you’re promised by the slick salesper-

son at Lists’R’Us, “It’s a completely opt-in, CAN-SPAM compliant list” you should know they are a liar or

at best incredibly stupid. Do you really think that there are people out there who willfully signed up for

something and checked the box that said “Yes, it’s OK to sell my email address to anyone on the planet?”

Of course not. Though that may be buried in the fine print legalese of some privacy policy that nobody

reads, you and I both know the truth - nobody would agree to that.

I understand that this whole email thing would be a lot easier if it was possible to buy a quality list of

prospects eager to hear from you, but it’s a fantasy. The sooner you let go, the better. People usually want

to buy a list so they can have a “big” email list. Focus not on the size of your list, but on the quality of the

contacts. Would you rather have a list of 1000 people where nobody cares about your information and

never opens your emails, or a list of 100 people who are eager to get your email? I’ll take the smaller list

all day long.

Focus on Content

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You can build the biggest and best list ever, but if you don’t give people what they want to read - why

bother? I know that if I can deliver valuable, relevant content for my readers it will pay off in the end.

If we provide the best information available, companies that want the best will seek us out. I also know

that if our content really hits the mark, our recipients might even forward the message and those people

may sign up to receive their own copy of our newsletter - helping us grow a quality list.

Get Relevant Details from the Start

When you are collecting people for your email list, make sure you get enough information from them to

treat them like they are special - because they are. This varies depending on your business - but it’s pretty

easy to figure out what to ask for. First, always ask for someone’s name in addition to his or her email ad-

dress. Then dig into the industry specific information.

If you sell computers maybe you should also know if someone is a Mac or a PC, or uses both. If you are a

doctors office you might want to set some age filters. This may allow you to send targeted emails to your

patients based upon their age. Sell clothes? Maybe Gender is important for your future emails. Yacht

Broker? Maybe sailing vs. power boats is important for you to know. Florist? How about asking for an an-

niversary date or spouse’s birthday?

Think about it and start collecting this information from the beginning. It will be much easier to deliver

relevant content using list segmentation and trigger messages down the road.

Hopefully these tips on how to build an email marketing list have been helpful - here’s a

quick review:

• Just start with what you have, right now. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Really.

• Consider all the points of contact you have with prospects/customers and use the best ones to consis-

tently collect email info.

• Always ask permission before adding anyone to your list, and give it a cool name.

• Build your list correctly, and disregard temptation of list buying as fools’ gold.

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• Deliver great content and your list will grow virally.

• Collect more than just an email address so you can make content relevant.