I just read a post titled "when you least expect it" or something like that. She talked about her email marketing campaign and how it sometimes takes time to see the results.

My question, where do you get your email list from? I'm just starting out and I have to be careful of my budget because I have no clients and no income as I am unemployed. I am desperatly trying to get my first client so I don't go into desperate mode and end up in corporate america again.

By Monday I plan to email a flyer to every single contact in my email address book. January 27th I plan to attend a network marketing event. But what else can I do? Any suggestions?

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

I am going to reply so that I see what other suggetions people have. I to am just starting, but have not made out my plan yet. I am going to specialize in real estate assisting and I am going to make my initial list by going through the real estate magazines and manually creating a list.

OK I went with the my counties Chamber of Commerce site, but this was going to be a direct mail piece vs email. But I feel like I'm missing something.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

Originally Posted by jnix612

I just read a post titled "when you least expect it" or something like that. She talked about her email marketing campaign and how it sometimes takes time to see the results.

That post was by me. That particular email campaign was a rare thing for me. I don't particularly like marketing that way, I prefer real snail mail. This was a one-off and I chose about five or six people in a group I wanted to target. I did a Google search for their industry and got their addresses that way.

Any type of marketing/advertising takes time to produce results. You may not hear from someone for months. For example a I sent out a mailing in May 2007 got me a call from one client in August 2007. We are still working together.

Patience in this area isn't just a virtue - it's a necessity.

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Julia

You have to be careful about email campaigns as there are strict laws in the US, but you are going about it the right way, using the emails of people that you know and then going to the networking meeting in January. Don't worry if you do not get clients from the first meeting, sometimes it takes a few meetings before people get to know you and get to know about your business. Be sure to bring lots of business cards, and give them to everyone you meet.

To be honest, I have just started social networking so I am still getting the hang of it. This is a whole new lingo as far as I am concerned.

No matter what you do, perseverance is what gets you noticed.

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Vicky
www.c-vas.eu

Great, thanks to you both. I'm starting to get a good idea on how VA's are marketing.

The tip about the event, that's a big help because I bet I would have given up on it if nothing came of it. I'll continue to attened.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

I am going to steer clear of unsolicited email as a marketing tool simply because I know how I treat unsolicited emails. I usually see these as unprofessional and possibly spam and delete without reading if they already aren't in my junk box or filtered out.

Good point Jenny. I too delete unsolicited email. Direct mail would be a good approach to solving this problem.

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Jessica Nix
www.virtuallylinkedva.com

Through my business experience, I have found that direct mail is very expensive for the low response rate. Many times my junk "snail" mail goes in the trash faster that my junk e-mail. With many of the e-mail programs now you have the benefit of a better tracking system. You can see how many opened your e-mail, how many followed links through. In fact, I think our new president was creditted for his aggressive e-marketing campaigns. The e-mail should be just one part of your on-line presence. Personally, I will not likely do ANY direct snail mail marketing. I would however, prefer if my e-mail list was a warm list vs. a cold list. The social networking is a great idea of getting these warm leads. Does anyone have any other ideas for lead generation?

Originally Posted by jnix612

My question, where do you get your email list from? I'm just starting out and I have to be careful of my budget because I have no clients and no income as I am unemployed. I am desperatly trying to get my first client so I don't go into desperate mode and end up in corporate america again. By Monday I plan to email a flyer to every single contact in my email address book. January 27th I plan to attend a network marketing event. But what else can I do? Any suggestions?

Hello Jessica,

Besides my address book, I started using social media via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to build my contact list. Each day I make it a point to contact 3 new people. If any show interest I get their contact information and add them to my address book for monthly updates. It has been working well for me. Good luck to you.

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Rikki Green
www.timeforlifeconcepts.com