Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Be very careful about any rented or purchased email list. No matter how much they promise that they're opt-in and permission-based, they are risky and could get you dropped from your ISP as spam.

I agree that it's better to work within organizations that already reach small businesses. Become a speaker for your Chamber and seek out other organizations that serve small businesses and offer to speak for them. Once you're a member, you can also *selectively* (not mass mailing) send emails to other members and make a connection. (This works best if you connect with a personal message for that individual.) You have the membership in common for starters.

I also agree that small businesses have more needs than budget, so they may only be profitable for you if you have a low-end template-style service that they can purchase for under $500. In my experience, many small businesses either are not fully up to speed on online media and technology or just don't have the time to persue it.

Since the SBA classifies anything with 500 employees or fewer as a "small" business (that's 98% of US employers), you may want to select a niche that is still smaller than corporate but in the upper end of "small" so that they have the budget to pay you and the sophistication to understand that they need you. You'll find these in lists from Chambers of Commerce in your local area.

Instead of the start-up market, you may want to go with the trade-up market--companies that have outgrown their first "cheap" web site and want something nicer. That probably means they have a little more money to spend.

Hope all is well. This is Mark Adler with Optinbuilders and we are an online marketing firm and we provide marketing solutions like email marketing, email list, email campaign etc. As suggested by others even I do agree that its really tricky, you have to first decide your target audience, probably your target area should be very small business owners, very small companies with very few employees who would be interested to expand there market or who would be interested in entering this field of email marketing etc. Thus I feel you should first select target criteria and then you can opt for an marketing firm to buy the list or for email campaigns, but you should be very careful because you might see so many companies who would provide you with such lists but be careful to get opt-in contacts so that you should not end up in spamming those contacts. If you could provide me with your contact information then I would be more happy to assist you with more information about our company and also can give you an idea about how we would be able to roll out campaign and would provide you with complete tracking details also we would be able to provide you with a list based on your target criteria.

Visit my profile for my contact information to contact me offline.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Start locally. That's the key. Each county keeps a list of new companies. It's free at the court house

You can do it by phone of in person, but I wouldn't waste time on direct mail at this time.

Michael

Hello,

Most list owner require a 5,000 name minimum on email and postal list rental. Small business owner can be hard to reach when you are targeting regionally. It can also be costly and your response rate will be lower than a branded company.

As a small business owner myself, I get out and network. I belong to a BNI group that I think you would benefit from on many levels. For one you will learn to network effectively and you will generate business for yourself. You will also learn who your referral partners are and start building a network of referral based business. Visit a few groups in your area and pick one that fits your personality and goals. Make sure the other members get out and network themselves.

Join your local chamber of commerce and surrounding chambers. They are geared toward small business owners.

Send me an email and I will show you how to develop leads in your area for free. All I ask is that you give me feed back on how it worked for you! I am in the process of developing a program for small business owners. You can be my test sample, because eventually I plan to charge for this knowledge and program.


Hope to hear from you.

Good Luck