No matter what your selling, or who your selling it to, one thing will always remain crucial. That is the cultivation, expansion and maintenance a customer base, (a house list).

On the Internet, this list is best generated by a permission based email subscription form such as the one on the top right of this page. By using a permission based list, your guaranteeing that your contacts actually want to hear from you and won’t regard your mailings as spam.

Don’t abuse your list by sending frivolous mailings every time you get an idea, rather send emails to your list only when you have important content to share. Be sure to include something of value to them. I like to add tips, links to sites that are helpful, a contest and news. At the most I send out an email 2 times a month.

A good email list with solid useful content, will turn customers into evangelists for your business and have buzzing about your latest endeavors. It will become a community of people who look forward to hearing from you and that is something that you can’t buy with advertising dollars. You have to earn it with a “value added first” approach, and then cultivate it with content that generates eager participation.

Those of you who are regular readers, know that I don’t recommend a product or a service unless I’ve tested it and really believe in it. I’m happy to say that the company I use to manage my email list has under promised and over delivered! Rare in today’s market, so please take a look at iContact.com if you need a great email management system at a very reasonable price.