As a business owner, you have done your due diligence in building an e-mail list comprised of your customer’s and prospect’s contact information. You have made sure that you always ask your patrons to update their information with you, and you are studious about always making sure new contacts are included.

By the Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce Editorial Team

Your email list is a valuable commodity—but only if you take the time to put it to work for your business.  Follow these tips to make your email list work for your marketing efforts.

• Get a monthly subscription to an email marketing platform like Aweber or MailChimp.  These platforms are incredibly easy-to-use and great for any business owner, no matter if you are skilled in email marketing or if you are a beginner.  Ultimately, by subscribing to an email marketing service you will have the ability to choose from a variety of pre-made email templates, or even create one from scratch.  Moreover, you can easily import your email list and the program will also allow for easy scheduling.  Finally, one of the major benefits of paying for a subscription service (don’t worry, these platforms are very affordable!) is the fact that you will also be given analytics information about who opens up your email, what they click on, how many times they have viewed the email, and a host of other information.  Having this data at your fingertips will allow you the chance to modify and tweak your marketing strategy, ensuring you are always getting your message through to your customers and prospects!

• Send out a monthly newsletter to your prospects and customers—or identify certain segments from your list, i.e. someone who has purchased from you in the past month—and send out a targeted email that speaks specifically to something that group would be interested in as a new customer.  Remember, just because you have a complete list does not mean you have to use the entire list every time you send out a mailing—the more targeted you are with a group, and the more focused you are in appealing to specific interests or needs, the more likely you are to make a sale via email marketing.

• Don’t forget about social media!  This is something a lot of business owners overlook as it relates to their email list—the fact that the email list can be imported into your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles, and all of those contacts can be invited to like, follow, and connect with you on those respective platforms is incredibly important to follow up on.  Tying all of your marketing efforts together and ensuring one cohesive and consistent strategy is used throughout will make a customer or prospect more likely to engage with you—increasing loyalty to your brand.

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At the end of the day, an email list that has been carefully built and maintained is worth its weight in gold—however, that statement only rings true if you actually use the list in a productive manner to communicate pertinent business information and updates with your prospects and customers.

The Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce is a business to business membership-based business association focused on providing tools and solutions to members to increase their presence online. The Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce offers Internet marketing services that help you to promote your products/services; to build business relationships and to collaborate with potential clients via an exclusive social network and it helps you to increase your sales using the e-commerce and marketing tools that are available for premium members.