You could just send out a newsletter or similar missive once a month with no structure or goal. This would be very entertaining and useful for your readers, but your business wouldn’t gain much out of it, nor would it counter its expense.

But by using your list with a long-term focus towards a special event or the launch of a specific project or product, providing early-bird incentives and other special offers to make your subscribers feel special, and using language that makes them believe they’re the only ones that access this information, your objectives could easily be met.

Lists needn’t be used for informational newsletters alone, you could promote your new book by offering tasters in stages, sell products or masterclasses, workshops or weekend courses, teleseminars or e-courses, or whatever your business wishes to provide its list subscribers.

You could provide passwords to gain access to specific landing pages, or combine payment with subscriptions to certain events, and even when purchasing specific items from an online shopping cart you could gather the buyer’s details into a list, which could be used to notify these contacts of similar items on offer in the future, or upsell other items you have in stock.

Lists are excellent for long-term cohesion for persuading your audience to buy a product or service, sign up to an event or subscribe to an e-course or similar educational system. People need to be seduced into parting with their money, and a gentle trickle of persuasive marketing tactics over a long time rather than short, sharp, shock treatment only a couple of weeks before usually has a higher return on investment, specially if the price is quite high.

But remember the 80/20 rule, 80% of valuable information versus 20% of sales and promotional tactics will help bring your readership round to your way of thinking, nobody likes a relentless hard sell or you’ll find they’ll be leaving your list in droves. A happy medium is vital and necessary.

Leave any questions or comments you may have, to enhance or counter this series; all will be gratefully received.