My last article – Small Business Fundamentals – The List – discussed how important it is to maintain lists, in particular a customer list. Hopefully you already have a list or two in your small business or at are putting into place plans to build some lists.

Once you have started to build a list of customers it’s time to consider methods to leverage that list to produce more customers. In my case my list is completely online and based on email subscriptions and I occasionally send out broadcast emails to make use of my best assets – my existing customers.

Here is a list of some of the techniques I apply to my client lists. Some of these are so simple you may be wondering why you didn’t think of them before. Others may not apply to your business exactly but should stimulate ideas and help you come up with ways to leverage your client lists.

1. Broadcast Monthly. As a rule I send out at least one message per month just to keep communication lines open. You don’t want to constantly be barraging your customers with sales every email so in my monthly broadcasts I usually inform my customers of new resources that have become available at my site. I often upload free articles that I source from the places like Ezine Articles and websites that I partner with. If you can, try and create unique resources of real value – writing articles yourself is an option if you have knowledge about the industry your business operates in. I inform my customers about the new resources and end with a small reminder about our services – 10% sales pitch, 90% good content.

2. Offer Discounts. I have a list of people that have yet to become customers, my prospects list. For this list I have an automatic series of responses sent out, first starting weekly, then turning monthly that offers them enticements to join. Once a prospect has been subscribed to my list for a long time I have an automatic email go out offering them a discount to try my business out. I even cut the price to the point where I don’t make a profit just to get the prospect to trial the service. I know if they like it they will use it again so often the act of converting them into a customer is the final roadblock that a discount offer removes.

3. Encourage Referrals. One of my favourite techniques is to offer incentives for my present customers to bring in their family and friends. The easiest customers to acquire are from current customers recommending your business. Word of mouth is always the best marketing method so why not encourage it as much as you can? Each current customer is potentially the best salesperson you could ever find and sometimes all it takes is an offer, like a credit for services/discount voucher or even just an email suggesting they tell friends about your business. Happy customers are happy to spread the word, they just sometimes need a little nudge to do it.

4. Joint Ventures. One of the best ways to gain exposure to many new prospects is to conduct a joint venture with another business operating in a complimentary industry to your own. In this case their products or services are not competing with yours but you share similar customers and can cross promote to effectively double your reach with a single broadcast email. You send out an announcement about your partner’s services or products to your list and they do the same to their list.

   The problem with this method is you need to have a reasonably sized list so that you have something of value to trade. If you only have 50 customers on your list it’s only realistic to expect that you can partner with people that have a similar sized list to you. Once you start getting into subscriber numbers in the thousands then you have some real power and can enjoy exponential growth rates as you partner with people that own similarly sized lists.

   A joint venture is a complex beast and you always want to have your current customer’s in mind. Don’t turn your list into an joint venture advertising SPAM list. Take the time to find joint venture partners running fantastic businesses offering great products that you really believe your customers deserve to know about.

   In order to find venture partners you should think about the demographics of your customers and consider products and services they would use. As an example my business BetterEdit.com offers student essay editing  and thesis proofreading and our primary market is international students. A complimentary service to this market is international calling cards and I have done partnerships with websites that offer these products. You just need to do a little brainstorming to think of appropriate partners and once your list is built start emailing for joint ventures.

5. Market Research. Are you considering launching a new product? Maybe you want to know what your clients think of your customer service? How about gathering statistics about your customer demographics to help with future marketing efforts? All these questions can be answered by sending a survey to your list. Perhaps you can offer incentives to fill out a survey such as discount vouchers, two-for-one deals or free samples. However you do it, your current list is a fantastic store of minable data just waiting to be accessed. Services like Survey Monkey give you the tools to create online surveys easily, which can be linked from or included in one of your broadcast emails to your list.

This is just a small sample of the techniques you can use to leverage your list. Best of all every tip I mentioned above is completely free, only requiring an investment of your time and energy. Of course the first step is to have a list, but once you start building the doors really start to open and you can never complain about lack of options when it comes to marketing.

Yaro Starak
List Marketer

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