2016 PROSPECTING
Gathering Email Addresses

One on the most attractive benefits to an email campaign is that it fits every budget. In other words, if you have 2,000 email addresses, and have interesting and informative information to share, your cost per each contact can be nothing.

It’s important to keep in mind the drawback to using an email campaign.

1. It is the least effective form of communication because most recipients receive dozens of emails each day, so your message can easily get lost.
2. Your email campaign is only as good as the number of email addresses you have in your database. A great message isn’t likely to yield results if it’s only sent to 10 or 12 people.

There’s not much we can do about the fact that people receive so many emails except to remember that the subject of the email must “sizzle”. The more enticing the subject line, the more likely the email will be opened.

There’s a great deal that can be done about the number of email addresses you collect. At the beginning of the year, we identified an email gathering campaign as being more important than anything besides securing new listings. A business day should never go by without several new email addresses being added to your database. And, of course, you should be collecting an email address every time you have a discussion with a new prospect, or even a new social contact.

You may also be in possession of hundreds of email addresses you could add to your database with even knowing it. Here’s a trick that could add hundreds of names to your existing address book. Take some time to go through your inbox. Revisit every email that has been sent to you during the past year, identify any addresses that aren’t already in your contact management system and add them to your existing database. Don’t forget to include any business email addresses that are not from a bulk sending system. Next, repeat the process with all of your sent email, once again asking the question, “Are any of these contacts people I should have in my address book?” You may be pleasantly surprised with all of the new email addresses you come up with.