Building Your E-mail list like Twitter and Facebook

I promised yesterday to talk about building your opt-in e-mail list and growing it. So I'll just cut straight to the point. Growing your opt-in e-mail list can be a pain, the only way you can grow your e-mail list is by hard work.

Go through your contact list
These are your A-list. Invite them, send a gentle introduction e-mail and be specific on what you are planning to do with your e-mail campaign. If it is knowledge product driven, give them a summary sample. Some will say you can just add them on as they can also unsubscribe, but I will say be careful with that practice as you may ended-up burning bridges instead of building them.

For those who want to use e-mail campaign to send out product-based advertisements, you should send them e-mails and get their consent, also make sure they put your e-mail address in your white list first as promotion-based e-mails often get flagged as spam.

Look through your Facebook Friends list
I hope you are on facebook, if not, it's time to do it. Facebook has been transforming from a pure leisure / personal model to a somewhat business friendly model, with business fan page, PPC (Pay-per-click) ads and alike. If you are already on facebook, try inviting your friends to your e-mail list. Rules from above do apply so be careful not to destroy relationships (business or personal) in the process.

How about that Twitter
When compared to Facebook, Twitter gives you higher chances to connect with prospects and random folks who shares the same topic interest. If you do not have Twitter, start there, build your follower base by searching for topic keyword and finding who is talking about that, add them to your following list.

Then invite them to your website and blog, encourage them to comment or engage users there. Then invite them the same way you would above.

How to keep them subscribed
Now that you have a good list built,the question becomes how to keep them subscribed. No doubt you'll have some that will unsubscribe here and there, so keep your content available through social media, blog and your own website so people who unsubscribe can have a chance to look at your content, this will allow them a chance to subscribe back again if they find your content interesting again.

Finally is content. Like I've said yesterday, content is the most important aspect to keep people engaged. Even if your e-mail campaign is focused on product deals and special offers, make sure your content allow people to engage with you as readers today have a very short attention span. grab their attention with your content and allow them to engage with you.