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.

Of course, that sounds simple enough, doesn’t it!  If you have no people who know you or your products, you have to reach them and make them aware of your existence and the benefits of your product or services.

Not only do you have to reach them, you are far better off, if you will strive to develop a relationship with them.  View your list as one of the most valuable business assets you own and use it aggressively and wisely in an organized and persistent fashion.

One of the best ways to have a group of people to whom to market is to develop a list of your own customers.  Then you contact them on a regular basis with specials, notices of ”list only” sales, more information about how to use your services, etc.  You are even better off, if you will give them tips on how to care for the products they have already purchased from thereby getting more value from you.  The list of possibilities is limited only by your imagination.

The usual methods are email, mail, phone calls, and faxes.  Every time you contact your customers you will be strengthening the “affinity bond.”  Your customers get to know you better.  The process they will go through is to “know,” “like,” and “trust” you.  They will likely be making purchases during this time though not necessarily.

Email campaigns are very inexpensive to deliver and should be employed regularly.  Direct mail campaigns are very effective and relatively inexpensive with regular sized postcards.  If you have a website where you offer products or services, your mail and email campaigns can direct your customer to these links.  Point them to new products, expanded services, and various specials.

Give them tips on ways they can make their lives better or their businesses more profitable.  This “something-valuable-for-nothing” approach triggers the psychological mechanism of the Law of Reciprocity.  When we receive something from someone else, we subconsciously and consciously want to return the favor.  In other words, when we get something valuable and free from someone, we want to balance the “emotional equation.”  We feel more like we should purchase whatever that person has for sale.  Of course that is not universal, but it is very powerful trigger.

By the time they trust you, they are prepared to spend their money with you!  You have developed the relationship properly.  This relationship is gold!  Work very hard to protect this and expand it.  You never want to degrade this relationship.  Your business integrity is at stake.  To the extent you are personally identified with your business, your personal integrity–your reputation–is also at stake.  Whatever you do, do not squander this valuable asset!

A reputation is easily damaged and very difficult to regain.  Develop it carefully and protect it vigorously by doing whatever it takes to do so!