How to grow your list offline.

Just like in the online world, you only want to collect the e-mail addresses of people who want to receive your e-mails offline, and there are many opportunities to get a new subscriber in the "real world":

* People calling you by phone to ask questions

You can take subscribers by phone. Come up with a short pitch/explanation of what you're offering via e-mail (just like you would on your website) and ask for their e-mail address. Put them in a spreadsheet and import the new addresses daily or every couple of days.

* Visitors to your physical store

Restaurants, bars, doctor's offices...if you have people coming in person to see you, ask if they're already getting your specials/newsletter/other information. If they're not already subscribed, have a sign-up sheet that they can fill out, or give them a card with the URL of your site/opt-in form so they can sign up there.

* Conferences, trade shows, etc.

If you have a booth at a trade show, or are going to a conference, you're bound to get a lot of business cards. Just like on the phone, come up with an "elevator pitch" for your list. When you're talking to someone and they hand you their business card, make your pitch. If they accept, write "Subscribe" or "Yes" on the card. When you get back from the event, import the addresses of the people who accepted.

With so many situations that you can encounter offline, it's easy to think that it's OK to add a given person to your list, when in fact they haven't given you permission to e-mail them.

To help guide you, Aweber Communications Inc. has published a set of situations, and whether or not it's OK to subscribe someone's e-mail address for your reference in its Knowledge Base.

You can also read some comments on Aweber's blog.

Our personal practice has always been to treat fresh leads as COLD leads. Never presume people are already warm to you on first encounter. It is always better to prepare an introductory message as a courtesy call and leads filter, describing:

1) yourself, your business and the benefits of your products and services,
2) how you get their e-mail addresses or contact number in the first place (just to remind them)
3) and a call-to-action asking them to proactively subscribe to your list to learn more about your business.

With regards to point 3, "some will, some won't, so what? NEXT!" Some cold leads will remain cold and fall out. You may like to mail them a second time, but not anymore than that.

The whole point of the activity is to qualify leads for future prosperity. In this manner, patience does pay.

After this, it's all about following up, getting your prospects more interested in what you have to say with every precious e-mail being sent, and it has to be done consistently too.

It not only demonstrates you are not a dormant marketer, it is also less likely your subscribers will forget you. But the truth about human nature is both attention span and memories are very short.

An e-mail address collected yesterday is far more valuable than one collected a month ago.

The more time that passes between someone giving permission to e-mail them, and when you actually start e-mailing them, the less likely they are to remember that they gave you permission to begin with and still want your information today.

This is especially true for offline subscribers because they may not have been to your website before, and so they won't recognize your URL right away like an online subscriber can.

So don't wait more than a couple of days to subscribe people to your list once they give you that offline permission.