No matter, whether You run a local Store, a Bar or Restaurant, or maybe some other Business – what do You think, would it be a great to have a list of loyal clients and the ability to tell them about Your campaigns, discounts, new products etc. just by making one move? You are right, it is! Because this saves You lots of money and time! Not only this, such a tool in Your pocket can actually raise Your Business to new heights. Is this Your dream? Then You’ll need to start a newsletter.
How to start a newsletter?
Although it may seem hard to do, the reality is different. Actually it is quite easy. Today’s services are created so, that You don’t need to have any special skills to create and run Your own online newsletter. Moreover, every professional service providers have video tutorials and very helpful support. They can do the installing and adjusting for You the way, that Your only concern will be sending out Your newsletters. So what do You need to start Your newsletter? The right tools!
Get access to professional email marketing service.
To make Your online newsletter work, You’ll need a tool, that will be the heart of it. This tool builds automatically a database of Your subscribers ( customers ), allows You send a broadcast to thousands email addresses, that has auto-responder capability (auto-responder sends out pre-written newsletters automatically, without Your presence – set it and forget it) has professionally looking email templates and that can give You detailed statistics about Your campaigns. There are many good services that can manage this task. Most popular are Aweber, iContact, GetResponse and some more. When You see their prices, You’ll see, that You can run Your Newsletter with less than $10 a month and upgrade whenever You need. Those companies give new clients free (or almost free – Aweber $1 trial) trials, so You can test Your pick for whole month.
Build An effective squeeze page
After selecting the suitable email marketing service, next thing that You’ll need, is the squeeze page. Squeeze page is the very important thing to have, when building a list. It is the “property”, where people actually can fill the opt-in form of Your newsletter. Of course You can put the opt-in form to Your business website, or even to Your Facebook fan page (Aweber provides this kind of capability), but the experience of Internet marketers shows, that squeeze pages do the job better because of higher sign-up rate. Read more about what squeeze page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeeze_page.
The squeeze page must be hosted somewhere. If You run a business, You maybe already have a website and a business domain name (with business name as a domain name – YourBusiness.com). If not, then it is time to get one. All this is not expensive at all. For example by JustHost You will pay only $3.75 for a month of hosting service, and the domain registration will be free for first Year. Any business can afford this. The domain name will be active within few minutes. You can set Your business website up within a minutes. The easiest way to create Your business web-site is to install WordPress software (free) to manage Your web-site and content. JustHost gives You access to free templates, specially created for Small Business. And of course the support is always ready to help You out, if You have any issues. You can use special plug-in to create professionally looking squeeze pages with ease.
All set up? Now it’s time to tell people about Your newsletter!
I suppose, that Your business has local impact and reach. In this case You can easily use offline and online advertising to reach local customers.
Offline advertising example: You can publish ads with the URL to Your squeeze page in local newspapers, give flyers to customers personally and etc.
You can promote Your squeeze page very effectively online too. Use PPC advertising of most popular search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Bing. They have geotargeting capability, that allows You to show Your promotions only to people, who are physically near to Your business.
If You would like to find more information about, how to build a mailing list and profit from it, please visit: List Building Basics