A company’s in-house mailing list is one of its most valuable assets. Having an in-house database not only reduces the costs associated with customer acquisition and marketing, but also provides an additional retention channel for communicating with existing customers (and prospects with the aim to convert to customers) on a regular basis.

Quality vs. Quantity

As you build your (opt-in) in-house list there may be pressure to get as many subscribers as possible - as if that leads to 'value for money'. Think quality vs. quantity. Your goal should be to find and persuade as many people in your target audience as possible to want to subscribe. One hundred interested, interactive readers who open your emails are a thousand fold more valuable then having 100,000 "who are they?" email addresses on your list.

Here are just a few ideas for companies actively seeking opt-in subscribers for their newsletters:

• Maximise Your Subscribe Sign Up - it should include a brief but insightful description at your sign up point telling potential subscribers what they’ll receive and how often they’ll receive it. Feature this descriptive and sign up function prominently throughout your company’s website and in the newsletter itself. Resist the marketer’s urge to require too much information at sign up. The more questions you ask, the less sign-ups you will receive. Unless you have very specific reasons why you need detailed information from subscribers, and are ready to accept a lower subscribe rate, then a good rule of thumb is to keep your form to no more than 1-3 relevant fields. Explain why you need the information ('for personalisation', 'to better tailor the content you receive'). The email address should be the only required field.
  
• Include a link to the subscribe form in your email signature file.
  
• Take advantage of transactional emails such as bills, acknowledgements, invoices or statements and include a link to your subscribe box.
  
• Have a 'tell a friend' feature in your newsletter. Have it next to each article to encourage sharing. Do not ask them to provide the friend’s address to you, simply offer an automatic forwarding function. The recipient of the forwarded newsletter will sign-up if they wish to subscribe.
  
• Promote your newsletter online - Use meta tags, inserting meaningful keywords to help search engines catalogue your content. You might even consider have a subdomain of your business address for the newsletter to further brand it. Look into pay-per-click search engine advertising to capture anyone actively searching for information relating to what your organisation offers. This will be a highly desirable subscriber.
  
• Promote your newsletter offline - Include subscribe instructions in your voicemail and company hold messages. Callers on hold might be sitting at their computer and sign-up.
  
• If you send out printed material to customers, such as direct marketing material, bills, invoices or statements, ask them to send in their email address if they wish to receive your newsletter. (Do not have pre-ticked boxes - make it opt-in.)
  
• Capture addresses in an opt-in manner at your reception desk, at your events and any conventions where you have a stand or a sponsorship presence. Have a sign up sheet at trade shows and at any presentations your company gives - make it very clear what they're consenting to receive. When sending your newsletter include text welcoming new readers, reminding them where they signed up. Have your unsubscribe function prominently noted.
  
• Rent Lists - Proceed with caution! If you are contemplating renting a list look at it as an opportunity to acquire prospects to engage and begin your relationship with them. Ensure your company locates a best practice reputable list broker.
  
• Set up a Co-Registration Deal - Co-Registration involves working with a complementary business sector or company in gaining new subscribers. Visitors signing up for a free subscription at the co-registrant’s website are also offered the chance to opt-in to your newsletter – and vice versa. Ensure that anyone you choose to work with operates a correct double opt-in system. Also ensure the first newsletter you send to the subscribers from this sign-up system makes it clear why they’re receiving it.
  
• Append to existing data - Proceed with caution! If you have customers in your database without email addresses you can consider email appending. This is the process of adding a customer's email address to their record. The address is obtained by matching those records from your database against a third-party database to produce a corresponding email address. Here's a recent article about the process.