Content marketing has become the most profitable form of advertising, where brands use carefully crafted content (blog articles, social media content, mailers, etc.) to grow brand interest and source prospective clients. Mailers are, like social media content, useless unless there are engaged people who will actually see and read them. Since mailers are sent via email, you’ll need a database or mailing list of email addresses you can send your emailers to. This article looks at four steps you can take to build the perfect mailing list for your small business:
Know your customer
The number one thing which you need to do is look at who your ideal clients are, and build personas of the people you think might be most inclined to need your services or products. For example, if you sell adult diapers, your customer pool has been narrowed down dramatically. If we assume that your target audience will be 60+, you should understand what types of content they will appreciate, and how they might feel about you asking for their email address and other information. This will help you decide on the style, tone, frequency and ideal platform for your adverts that promote your mailers.
Craft some cool content
Now that you know who you’d ideally like to have on your mailing list, the next phase involves developing the actual content that will attract people to join your mailing list. Will you link people to a digital form from a PPC advert or social media post? Might you add a contact form to your website where browsers can sign up for your mailers? Other content you need to develop at this stage includes ‘thank you’ pages for showing appreciation should a prospective customer add themselves to your mailing list, as well as the actual mailers you’ll be sending to people in your mailing list.
