7 Tips for Quickly Building Your Customer Contact List to 5000

Keeping the lines of communication open with your customers through frequent emails and/or text messages can play a massively vital role when it comes to the rise or fall of your business. They’re both simple methods for staying top-of-mind among your customers — sending them the friendly nudge of “Hey! Don’t forget about me!” They’re an equally easy means for you to constantly keep your customers in the know — enlightening them on current and upcoming services, products, promotions, or any other important updates.

Now, in order to make driving customers to your business through email and text marketing a reality, first, you need to start at the drawing board — establishing a customer contact list. Obviously, before you can start attracting customers to your business you need to have customers whom you can actually send those emails to. So, if your business has a lack of customer contacts and/or is looking to improve on the customer contact list you already have — we’ve got you covered. 

Check out the 7 best tips for quickly building your customer contact list to 5000.

1. Ask during checkout

A great tactic for easily grabbing some email addresses is by simply asking while your customers are checking out. An easy, natural way to ask could be something like this…

"Thanks so much for stopping by, today! If you’re interested please leave us your contact information so we can keep you updated on all our latest services, products and promotions."

Obviously, this doesn’t need to be the exact verbiage you use, but you’ll find a statement similar to this will help you build your customer contact list fast. The trick here is making things light, natural, and giving customers the promise of an incentive.

2. Signup sheet

You pride yourself on instilling a friendly environment in your shop. You see yourself as your customers’ friend. That’s why it’s perfectly natural for you to maybe feel a little uncomfortable coming straight out and asking customers for their contact information. That’s totally fine. For those of you that don’t feel comfortable asking — think: signup sheet.

Keeping a signup sheet at your checkout is a great way to capture new contact information and expand on your customer contact list. As with the verbal approach, it’s important you briefly highlight somewhere the benefits of customers leaving their contact information.

3. Business card bowl

Another way to ask for customer’s contact information without actually asking is by simply leaving a business card bowl. The majority of your customers have business cards. This gets you off the hook of actually having to ask and them for actually having to write anything. They simply drop their card in the bowl and you now have their name, phone number, and email address.

4. Signup info on printed receipts

It can feel tough sometimes to get printed materials in the hands of customers; however, 99% of your customers leave your business after every visit with print materials in hand. Don’t believe me? Think receipts! After every transaction, all your clients are presented with a receipt. Use this opportunity to inform them about your email list. Include small, brief messaging explaining where to sign up and what the benefit is. As you don’t want the receipt to be ten feet long, keep your benefits message short and sweet.

5. Promote contact capture on your website

With 60% of small businesses failing to put their phone numbers on their website, it’s no surprise that many also fail to include email signup forms. Featuring a signup form on your website is an incredibly easy and effective way to gather additional email addresses. Make sure you’re featuring the signup form on either the navigation bar or the footer of your site. You want to make it as visible as possible. If you’re really looking to incentivize your customers to leave their email addresses, include a discounted coupon code for every signup. Even something small like, “$5 off next visit” can really go a long way when it comes to incentivizing people. Not only can this help to build your customer contact list, but it can also encourage more bookings!

6. Promote contact capture on your social media pages

You want to speak to customers where they are. Wondering where that happens to be? Social Media. Currently, there are approximately 1.23 billion users on Facebook, 645 million on Twitter, and 400 million on Instagram. That’s a lot of potential customer information out there ripe for the taking. So, put your business out there. Make a post, send out a tweet -- keep your social followers in the loop about your mailing list. Be sure to either include a link to your contact capture form or simply give details for signing up.

7. Print materials are still a thing—think postcards

Although the world is turning digital, your printed materials still hold value. With any printed materials you create, from flyers to gift certificates, make sure you’re promoting contact capture. If you’re really hungry for customer emails or numbers create postcards to include with every purchase or to hand out during checkout. The just provide easy to follow instructions for how to signup and the benefits of doing so.