Trade Shows

Whether you have a booth, are one of the presenters, or are simply attending a trade show, you have an excellent potential opportunity similar to networking events, but at a much greater scale. Organizing the follow-ups to people you actually spoke to yourself, and then adding the person to your personal list is a given.

The general information requests gathered by associates at your booth can be handled in a similar way. Lastly, you may have organized a giveaway or contest to gather more leads at the show. These people are frequently less interested in what you have to say, and more interested in whatever they might be getting or winning. As a result, it may require secondary contact to obtain the permission to add them to your regular communications. In general, hitting contest winners with a "hard sell" is not usually effective.

  Seminars

Organizing informational seminars is a great way to build a healthy relationship with prospects and potential referrers. One effective technique is to have advance registration, and to ask permission to send regular emails at that time. This way, even if the person is not able to attend the seminar, you still have an opportunity to stay in touch with them. After all, they were interested enough to register for the seminar.

  Events

Concerts, parties, art openings, or any other occasion that gathers people together can provides an opportunity to build your email address lists. Having a registration or check in location, or associates with clipboards working the room are just two ways to make contact. In the case of events, it is a good idea to offer some kind of incentive to boost signups. However, make sure that the person can only receive the incentive via email. This way, you will improve the quality and accuracy of the lists you are collecting.

  Post Cards/Direct Mail

When a company has an existing database of postal addresses, direct mail may be the best way to get the email addresses for your existing customers and prospects. Again, offering an incentive always helps stimulate a greater response, and is particularly effective when there is a pre-existing relationship. This helps increase the typical response rate of converting postal address recipients to email recipients. Publish a specific, but simple, web site address on your mailing to direct people to a landing page with the list signup on your site.

6.6.3 Email Content - Text vs. HTML

This is probably every email marketer’s dilemma. More so, due to the fact that there is no clear majority of people preferring one format over the other. Some people will always prefer text to graphics, and some email readers only support basic text. A prominent Internet Marketing website recently carried out a survey asking not only which format was preferred but why one format was preferred over another. Over 600 people-mostly marketers and small business operators-responded.

55% favored HTML and 45% preferred Text. Given that well over 90% of email readers can view HTML, it is surprising that almost half the people would prefer to receive Text. To investigate this point further, the survey gave those who chose Text a list of possible reasons to explain why. On average, people listed about two and a half reasons each. They said:

	Can't read HTML 6%
	Just want the meat without the distractions 32%
	Like to read offline 15%
	Ads are more intrusive in HTML 22%
	Slow to download 14%
	Other 11%

The most popular reason for choosing Text over HTML was an interesting one. People were clearly expressing a desire for email layouts that focused on the message, and they often saw HTML emails as containing elements that distract from the content-the content being the reason they signed up for the email in the first place.

11% of the people who selected "Other" as their reason gave their own reasons as:

	Text takes up less storage space 28%
	Security-fear of viruses 22%
	Easier/faster to read/scan 13%
	Text is easier to read on a PDA 9%
	Text is more reliable, formatting/forwarding etc. 7%
	Easier to save/file/copy text 6%
	Like to read email in preview pane 4%
	Text is more personal 4%
	Fear of tracking/being spied on with HTML 4%
	Text is more easily searched off line 1%

The fact still remains that readers are almost equally divided on their preference. The best way to get around this is to give your subscribers an option of receiving messages in Text or HTML.