Manage Your Mailing List Activities Automatically

In my opinion, the most important aspect in marketing online or offline is building your opt-in database. In other words, the bottom line for you to run a successful business lies in your mailing list(s) subscribers that make up your opt-in database.

If you have noticed opt-in has been the underlying theme of my previous two articles. Opt-in is an important concept for building your mailing lists. The fact that your mailing list is Opt-in means you have collected information from people that have asked for your email messages.

There are many different reasons for having a mailing list. One, you may have a Newsletter that you publish. When the day comes to send out your publication you look no further than your newsletter mailing list.

These people have placed their names on your list because they are interested in the information that you are giving them. If it is an Internet Publication they will have subscribed through your web form or sent an email to your subscription autoresponder.

Another mailing list may keep track of prospects that have signed up to receive information on a product or service you are selling. Still another list can be made up of your clients or customers. It is always a good idea to keep your customers updated on new products or services.

Gone are the days of manually adding your prospects and customers contact information to your spreadsheet program. Now, there are tools available that add contact information to your database automatically. With today's database management tools most database activities are automated. A fantastic database management tool is an autoresponder. Simply put, an autoresponder is an email address. When someone triggers the autoresponder their contact information is stored in a database. A person triggers an autoresponder by sending a direct email or submitting a web form to it.

A quality database management tool should have the following capabilities:

• Automatically subscribe and unsubscribe people to and from your mailing list.
• Email notification when someone has been added or removed from your mailing list.
• Be able to Import lists into your database.
• Send single mailings or group mailings to your list members.
• You have access to your mailing list control panel. In other words, don't have some company handle your mailing lists.
• You can view your list of subscribers and all information gathered from each subscriber.
• You can add and delete subscribers manually.
• Allows you to start sending to your list on any message.
• Automatically maintains your mailing list and keeps it clean (i.e., deletes bad email addresses)

If you have a business, you have need for a contact database system. Find a database system that automatically manages, manipulates and tracks all of your contact's information in your Opt-in Database.

In order for your business to be truly successful you need a contact database system. Preferably, a contact database system that manages you mailing lists automatically, freeing up your time so that you can come up with ideas to bring in new subscribers.

Copyright © Dwayne McLean 2002.

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