Why Are Mailing Lists Important?

There is much discussion over the web on the topic of building a mailing list and that every business needs to have a mailing list.

Why are mailing lists so important?

In communications there is a concept called – “one-to-many”, one-to-many means that one individual can communicate with many people at the same time.

This is the essence of a mailing list. It’s your ability to communicate with a large group of people at the same time. Via this method of communication you can easily send out a sales email or promotional email and within minutes it will reach a large group of people.

The mailing list is a very powerful marketing tool for the very simple reason that those who opt in to be on your list – want to hear from you. This gives you the opportunity – if done right – to promote products to your list of contacts.

Once your list is big enough you can then ‘play around’ with it and test different marketing messages. For example: divide your list into three groups. To each group promote the same product but with a different marketing message and see which group responds the best, then you will know which one of the messages is working.

A few important stuff about mailing lists:

1] Always make sure you are sending useful information. The email should not only be a sales letter.

2] Make sure you are not spamming anyone – all emails should be permission based emails

3] Let your subscribers know when you will be sending out your emails. If they know a head of time – they will know when to expect your emails. Never change from your emailing schedule. Your subscribers will think you are abusing the list if they are getting to many emails or to many emails very close in time.

4] Sign up for programs where you can track the stats of how many people on your list opened your email. This is very important as it gives an indication if people are reading your emails. A leading company in the industry is icontact.com, they say: “The Email Marketing Service That Allows You To Easily Track Sends, Opens, Clicks, and More!”

5] Use your list..dont abuse it!

In another article I will discuss how to build a mailing list…stay tuned!