The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing

5

Building a Quality Email List

I recently ate dinner at Bobby Flay’s Bar Americana restaurant in New York City. I expected dinner to be great. In fact, it was excellent. Following dinner, I used the comment card provided by the restaurant to tell them how much I enjoyed dinner. When I returned to my office in Waltham, Massachusetts, I found an email waiting for me from Tyler, the restaurant manager. The email thanked me for my comments and invited me to contact him in the future if I ever needed assistance in getting a reservation at any one of their restaurants.

I would probably have returned to a Bobby Flay restaurant just because of the experience, but this simple outreach by Tyler extended my experience well beyond my time at the table. Now I’m excited for my next visit, because I have a new connection at a famous restaurant. It even makes me want to share my good experience with the thousands of people reading this book. Not bad for a first connection!

There’s a great lesson here. If a restaurant chain with fame, fortune, and success still finds the time to make ongoing connections with its customers, every business should find the time to do the same.

This chapter shows you how to build a quality customer email list by identifying your customer connection points, determining which points provide the best opportunity to make a connection, and showing you how to make a connection that enables you to easily build and grow your list.