Starting a new business, whether a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, requires much planning and preparation. Once you have everything in place for the official launch of your business, you are totally dependent upon an unknown factor — the customer. Advertising, whether by traditional or online means, will get some results. The secret of building any business is in building your list of customers, as well as potential customers. This list will prove to be invaluable to your business.
List building is nothing new. Although list building has a huge potential in both online as well as the brick-and-mortar businesses, savvy brick-and-mortar business owners have utilized customer lists for years even before the onset of online marketing. A dynamic duo is combining the online business concept with the traditional brick-and-mortar business concept.
A trick of the trade in today’s business world is combining your list of customers with an auto-responder. By using an auto-responder, potential customers can subscribe to your list on your website. The list of resulting subscribers provides you with a list of potential customers to keep informed with new products, updated information, an interesting study, or most anything providing value to your subscribers.
By establishing your credibility with these subscribers and providing value in the information received through your newsletters, they build a relationship of trust with you and the result is repeat customers. You have the potential to retain them as customers for a lifetime.
When you use an auto-responder you must be able to show how your product or service can provide your subscribers with a solution to problem in order to get results. Customers today do not want to be sold. Rather, they are looking for solutions to a problem.
Besides using your list for future customers, there are a variety of other uses of well-built lists, as well. Often the number of subscribers can be an enticement for paid advertisements on your website, sponsorship of your website, or even a joint venture. This can allow you to offer a wider variety of products to your subscribers and entice them to visit your website more frequently.