Your mailing list (or e-mail list) is everything! I know this sounds like an overstatement, but consider this.

Your list is your customer database. The names on this list are the record, so to speak, of your business. They are certainly the most valuable asset of your business. “But,” you may argue, “I have all this expensive equipment to produce my products.” I would say your products are worthless unless there is someone to buy them.

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Here is a classic example of a large corporation’s failure to effectively take the customer’s psychology into account.

While I’m certain Macy’s spent a lot of money on marketing before they made all the changes described in the New York Times article, they only concentrated on the proper things with the proper scientific testing after they had lost billions of dollars and run off some valuable customers forever! And this doesn’t even count a dramatic drop in Macy’s stock price!

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Recently a friend of mine who owned an electronic shopping cart service explained the following:

He had been offering the first month of his service (normally about $30/month) free to customers to try-before-buying. He experimented with a $3.95/month charge for that first month. He had supposed he would have fewer people who would sign up at all, and, therefore, fewer new customers.

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