***Entrepreneurs Need to Build a List Too

No matter what your business is you should be building a list of contacts and prospects. Entrepreneurs and small business owners need to be as diligent at this as Internet Marketers are. What Internet Marketers have demonstrated time and again is that a list of prospects and contacts CAN build great business success. A list in essence is a business’ “bread and butter”. The list is what become your valued customers and clients.

Whether you are a “brick and mortar” business or an online business, you need to building a list. Many, many offline businesses fail to effectively build a list online. Most businesses can use an online list. The idea of building a list is that you are “capturing” contact info for your website visitors. These visitors are so important to your business. But when they come and go without leaving you their contact info you have no way of following up, staying in touch or being “front of mind” when they change over to a “buyer” instead of window shopper.

List building is the first, most important and most constant of all the tasks that entrepreneurs should engage in. Maybe you don’t see it now but staying in touch with people consistently increasing your likelihood of converting a person into a client. Many believe that their business just doesn’t exist without their list.

You might see people saying that list building just isn’t that important. But the reality is that it is essential. When you have a list of targeted prospects you have the ability to continue to build your relationship and rapport. Not collecting contact information for your customers and contacts is a dangerous business decision. Even if you have a store front, you should be collecting valuable info from you customers.

Email gives us all the ability to easily stay in touch with people. But it is vital that your email has true value. People’s email boxes are full and you need to stand out. By offering real value with each email you will.

Think about it, someone comes to your store, you collect their contact info, and you are able to let them know about special events, sales and online opportunities to do business with you.

The CAN SPAM act of 2003 made is illegal to send bulk marketing emails without the consent of the recipients. That is the law. The penalties for disobeying this law are tough! You can be fined up to $11,000 per unsolicited marketing email that you send! You must be sure that you are collecting permission as well as email addresses. Even in your store you can have people sign up on your email list. Just keep the log of sign ups. You can personally add them to your list and that is okay.

There are many good ways to build your list. List building is an art, and at the same time the steps are easy to do. You can build a targeted list in person and online. Everyone on your list will be a valued subscriber, just on the verge of being a valued client.

If you are an entrepreneur you need to be building a list of contacts and prospects that you can continue to stay in touch with. Whether you are online of offline a list can be the “bread and butter” of your business, and its ability to weather the ups and downs of the economy and business environment.