The most common way is to ask customers to leave their email address when they make a purchase; you will need to give them some idea of what you would like their email for. E.g.: By leaving your email address we will occasionally contact you with special offers or other information regarding ABC limited.

The information you give regarding the content and (approximate) frequency of your emails must be accurate, otherwise you risk breaking the law. Further information is in the Legal Issues section of this article. 

Bear in mind that the number of customers who sign up will vary depending on the type of business and products/services you sell. If your business is one that customers need regularly, then they may be keener to give you their email address than if they only need your product once a year.
 

Non/Potential-Customers

Collecting the email addresses of non-customers (E.g.: Newspaper/magazine/internet ads etc) will be much harder than collecting those of customers, particularly as you may not have any opportunity to ask them!

You need to offer some kind of incentive, otherwise why should they give their details to a business they aren’t using? Special offers or competitions can work well, providing content that is relevant or interesting to the reader can be more costly but is often one of the most effective ways.

As non-customers are not yet buying from you, you will need to think of more creative ways to invite them to sign up. If you have a website, then make sure there is a visible and simple way to join your email list; this means that browsing and potential customers can be picked up much more easily than any other method.

You could also try including the message (E.g.: Find out more about us and get email only discounts and special offers by signing up/emailing us at ) in your adverts, leaflets and other promotions.
 

Forms and Signing Up 

There are three main ways of signing up for an email list, they are as follows:

1. You manually add an email address that has been written down for you.
2. The person adds their email address by sending you an email request to join. (this can be automatic, or you take the address and add it to the list manually)
3. The person adds their email address by filling in a form online.

People are much more likely to join your email list if they can do it quickly and easily, if you add their address manually then they can sign up quickly. If they can fill in a brief form online they can sign up quickly whilst they are already on your site.

If someone has to email you it is less quick, and therefore less likely to get the email added to your list. Although opening an email program, entering your email address and typing “Please add me to this list” is not a huge task; it is still reliant on the person making some effort, when you should be making it as simple as possible for them.

You can add questions to online forms; this allows you to gather basic data on your customers such as age and gender. This data can help you to target your emails and other promotions, and can teach you more about your customer profiles. However, the more questions, and the more intrusive the questions, the less likely it is that your customers will want to answer them.
 

Buying Email Address Lists

There are a number of sources that sell lists of email addresses, you can buy them and create an instant list.

However, there are several serious risks with these lists; and you should look at all the potential problems before you buy one:

• A list of emails will not define between your customers and non-customers; the odds are you will only get non-customers, which does not help you build customer relationships or encourage repeat custom.
   
• Lists are not normally targeted at particular locations or target groups, so a large percentage of the list you buy could be worthless for your needs; especially if you have no online/phone sales channel to sell addresses outside your local area.
   
• To get lists that are targeted for your requirements you will have to pay a lot more per email address.
   
• Some lists from less scrupulous companies may contain addresses that have not authorised such unsolicited emails. Use of these addresses could find you inadvertently breaking the law. You should only use lists that are properly verified and checked.
   
• Even though someone has agreed to receive unsolicited messages through a third party, it does not mean that they will treat your email as worthwhile. If they have not added their name to your list personally, they will pay much less attention (if any) to it.
  
  
  Article Index

  1 Introduction
  2 How to Collect Email Addresses
  3 Example: BizHelp24
  4 Legal Issues
  5 How to Create Your Email
  6 Monitoring Success
  7 Links