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How To Build Your Own Free Email Lists

If you haven’t been building free email lists for your translation service, you are missing out on some big opportunities here.

When used properly email marketing can attract the right kind of clients for you in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Having a quality list gives you the opportunity to market your service right to the targeted audience. That is priceless!

There are many different types of email lists you can build. I personally have 3 lists :

a list of past clients
a list of people who are interested in the services that I offer
a list of supportive friends and family members that will help promote me and give me new ideas and constructive criticism

But just how to build free email lists that you can market to over and over again? Here are a few tips:

1- Never underestimate what you already have

Before you fret about building free email lists from ground up, you need to look within your existing database. Do you have some happy clients already?

With existing or past clients, you need to keep their basic contact information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses.

With existing clients, you also want to have a record of how much you charge; the size of the project; how fast you get paid and the frequency of their job requests etc..

With past clients who spent a significant amount of money, you may also want to know their birthdays and other significant occasions so that you can send congratulatory messages on those days.

Doing so often helps you build a stronger relationship with your list. Study shows that existing clients spend 5-7 times more than new clients. Not to mention it costs way more to develop new clients than to market to your existing client database.

2- Start a blog or website and collect email addresses from interest visitors

Many translators dismiss the effectiveness of having an active blog or website. Yes, nothing will guarantee a success. But if you don’t have a strong web presence these days, you are clearly missing out opportunities out there.

The key is to talk about what you know and what your target market cares about. When your site attracts a steady traffic flow, you will also have a growing list.

Make sure you offer something interesting and enticing so that your visitors will want to sign up for your newsletters.

Once you start your newsletter, make sure you send out messages regularly. Read more about email marketing strategy
and email writing tips
.

3- Invite people to get on your list

Building free email lists is an ongoing process. To service providers such as translators, a good quality list is the livelihood of your business. Many things can change from time to time, but with a good list you can always bring in a predicable income.

So invite people to get on your list whenever and wherever you can. Protect your list like your life depends on it. You should never sell or rent your free email lists to anyone.

Once you lose the trust of your list, you may never get it back. And it takes a lot of hard work to build that trust.

4- Friends and family members are your best allies

Having a circle of supportive friends and family is such a key to your business success. I often send my ezines to them and ask for feedback. They are not shy to tell me what they think. If anyone wants me to do well in my business, that’s my family and friends.

I share a lot of things with them in my emails – my little success; my terrible experience; my frustration; my failure and my new ideas etc..

Another thing I send emails to my family and friends is when I need to contact a specific company. The advice I get often amazes me. I can’t imagine growing my business with them.

5- Beware of anti-spamming law

Do not abuse your free email lists by bombarding them with sales messages and countless promotions. There are anti-spamming laws in most countries. Spamming most likely will not get you the result you want and it may even get you in trouble and being banned.

Also try to avoid the use of hotmail or yahoo mail address to do your email campaigns if you can. The best practice is to have an email address that ends with your own domain name.

Make sure the emails you send to your free email lists consists of a good ratio of valuable information (75%) vs. promotion of your service(25%).

Don’t forget to pick up the phone and arrange in-person meetings as other means of establishing a strong relationship with your list. It’s the extra effort and time that indicates to your list that you care.

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Want more tips to attract quality translation jobs and high-paying clients? Sign up for my free ezine: