Without realising it most marketers these days are running a one dimensional type of business when it comes to list building techniques.
Most marketers that I know only stick to one method of communicating with their customers and prospects.
Building a list of targeted prospects who are actually interested in what you are offering them is nowhere near as easy some gurus make it out to be, particularly if you are involved in a market that is saturated with competition.
The solution is to be different and not just do what everybody else is doing.
In my opinion marketers are concentrating too much on learning certain strategies, tips and tricks instead of actually increasing the number of communication channels that they are using. Rather than just using the same communication channel that everybody else is using, why not use a combination of different communication channels.
Here are the three different list building techniques that that every marketer should be taking advantage of:
1) Email Marketing
OK I know everybody is using email marketing, but that is exactly the problem I am trying to emphasise here. The fact is that most people get too many emails each day and most of them are not opened for that reason. Back in the early days of the internet, email was like a novelty and was usually greeted with enthusiasm.
But now email has lost most of its appeal and it can not be relied upon as your only means of communication between you and your subscribers. A smart marketer looks for other ways to keep in contact with their customers. The biggest problem with email is that it is free, and is the perfect tool for spammers. A spammer can send out thousands of emails at zero cost.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that you should give up completely on email marketing – that would be silly. But what I am saying is that now is the time to start looking at alternatives to email marketing and to combine all of these communications into your list building efforts.
2) Mobile Marketing
At the time of writing this mobile marketing is still relatively new and untapped. If you haven’t jumped on the mobile marketing bandwagon yet, then you should seriously consider it. It will not be that long before mobile marketing is just as common as email marketing. And here are the reasons why:
- most people have a smart phone, and those that don’t will more than likely have one before too long
- you basically have 24 hour access to your subscribers simply because most people take their mobile everywhere with them
- around 95% of all text messages are opened within 15 minutes of sending them
- a lot of people only own smart phones, but not a desktop computer or lap top (especially teenagers)
Like any form of list building you need to ensure that you provide value for your subscribers. Obviously you are not going to please everybody, but you should try to satisfy your target market’s needs. Send them updates about news that they would be interested in, or give something away that they would appreciate.
If you can provide genuine value to your readers then they won’t look at your messages as just being spam, and will read them and in some cases take action.
3) Direct Mail
Unlike mobile marketing, direct mail has been around for a very long time and is the traditional way of communicating with interested customers. But since the internet was invented email marketing largely took over because it was free and the messages were delivered instantly.
But the truth is that a lot of people prefer to receive something tangible in the mail, instead of digital messages. Some people appreciate both, but regardless you should be at least be thinking of starting up some sort of direct mail campaign.
One of the popular new ideas is to send out postcards which direct your clients back to a particular website to buy something that they will most likely be interested in. Or it could even just be a typed up letter outlining what is happening in your business and how the reader can benefit by being involved. The point is that it is a traditional way of communicating with people.
Direct mail is not free (like mobile marketing is not free either), but this means that it is not abused like email marketing – and therefore it is generally well received. The cheapest option is usually not the best option, and this is particularly true with email marketing. If direct mail is done properly the investment will be well worth it from the extra sales you will make.
So the whole point of this article is to wake marketers up to the fact they need to be diversifying the way that they communicate with their customers, and not just rely on solely email marketing, but to mix it up and combine it with other alternatives.
