How to "Keep in Touch"
By Jim Daniels

Do you regularly contact people who have shown an interest in your products, services or opportunities?

It is a fact of business that most people need to see your offer up to seven times or more before they take action. Regular contact establishes both your reputation and your marketing expertise. It is a must for every business, especially in cyberspace.

In the real world, a "quarterly mailing" of a newsletter or postcard was probably about all you could afford. After all, mailing to a few hundred or thousand prospects can generate a significant expense, especially for small
or home business owners like ourselves.

But now.... You have no excuse.

Keeping in touch with your prospects in cyberspace is virtually free. It costs nothing but time and a little expertise.

Time is one commodity I cannot provide for you. (If I could, I'd brew up a batch for myself!) What I CAN share is my expertise - after all, that's what this space is all about!

So, exactly HOW does one keep in regular contact with their prospects on the internet.

Simple: Innovative email contact.

Now I'm not talking about looking through your AOL address book and manually sending messages to everyone lucky enough to still be there. I'm talking about utilizing real software and web resources that automate and professionalize what can be a very tedious task.

What are the best methods of regular contact?

As I've mentioned many times in the past, an ezine, or electronic magazine is an excellent way to establish regular contact. I publish mine weekly, but you can choose bi-weekly or monthly. An ezine is simply an electronic newsletter that shares information about the things you are marketing.

If you'd prefer not to publish an ezine, consider a tip sheet. This is similar to an ezine but smaller. In it you can offer a weekly tip about your area of expertise.

Other forms of regular contact include web surfing guides (a regular email referral to the best sites about your business) and moderated discussion groups. A moderated email discussion group is a forum you deliver by email that allows participants to post messages while you decide which posts are published in each issue.

All of the above are acceptable and effective methods of regular business contact online. They generate interest in your business and, in turn, income. This is why they are so popular! Perhaps you have an idea for a similar weekly or monthly mailing. Hey, use your imagination - you do not have to do what others are doing.

Once you decide on a format that fits your style, all that's left is to implement it.

Here is my "Elite Eight" list of best online resources to aide you with this task:

1. UltraEdit-32. http://www.idmcomp.com/products/index.html
A good ascii based word processing program is a must for anyone running a list. This program offers "must" features for anyone publishing email newsletters or discussion groups. These include a spell-checker and the ability to set line width for easy message reading in all email programs.

2. CoolList - http://www.coollist.com
This company will host your mailing list for free. In exchange, they put a small, 3-line ad at the end of each message that you mail out. Although using the services of CoolList means you will be promoting their services for free, it also makes things easier on newbies by handling subscribe and unsubscribe requests for you. A decent trade off -- especially for newcomers to e-publishing.

3. Oaknet - http//www.oaknetpublishing.com
This is one of the leaders in email list management. Owner Phil Tanney's in-house system provides a cost-effective solution for ezine publishers. His servers even automatically remove undeliverable addresses for you! That's a tough feature to find elsewhere. Oaknet is an ideal solution for small to medium sized list owners.

4. Sparknet - http://sparknet.com  
An excellent majordomo list host and the host of my BizWeb Gazette. This company offers a hybrid web interface for simplifying your list management. Competitive pricing, especially for large lists like my own, and very good technical support.

5. Mail-List - http://www.mail-list.com
A pay-by-size list host that offers an easy to use system for both you and your subscribers. Offers hosting of announcement lists and discussion groups.

6. Mailloop - http://www.mailloop.com
A big time saver for anyone managing their own email lists. Although this program is designed as a bulk email program, I use it solely to manage my email lists. Key features include the ability to filter email addresses out of text files, eliminating duplicate addresses in lists, combining email lists and subtracting one list from another (great for unsubscribe requests). The demo version of Mailloop is available for free download at their site.

7. OnTarget. http://www.neteffectllc.com/ontarget
OnTarget is an online service that automatically captures the form submissions from your web site and allows you to easily generate mass mailings targeted to the interests of your visitors. In addition, OnTarget provides form routing, activity reports, auto-responders, mailing label generation and more.

8. The New-List Announcement List. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/new-list/format.html
This address will help kick your new list off with a flurry of participants. You simply post a message telling people about your newsletter to this "NewList Announcement List" address.

Do you have a favorite resource you rely on to get your marketing message out...?

Don't keep it to yourself - come tell your peers at our cybermarketing "hot spot". The CyberMarketing InfoBoard  -- Where the real internet marketing experts converge