Once you have answered these questions, you can setup a process for systematically building the database. Step 2 is following your plan. You need to commit to 15 minutes, 30 minutes and hour a day to filling in the database. If you are a small retailer, you’ll want to ask everyone who comes in your store to fill out a card so they can receive mailings about Events or Coupons or Member Only Specials. Then every night, no matter what, 10 or 15 contacts are entered into your database. At the end of the first month, you have 200-300 contacts you can stay in touch with. At the end of two months, you’ll have 400-600 contacts. What’s the value in that? Maybe instead of running an ad in the local paper for $500, to people who don’t know anything about your business, you can mail a flyer to your 500 favorite prospects who know you and like you. And the cost to your target list will only be $250, and your response rate will be higher.

Some businesses require larger customer and prospect lists. There are a number of semi-automated ways to build valuable lists. By using the internet to capture information, and then contacting the prospect you can build lists fast. Some internet marketers build there lists at the rate of 2000 or more contacts per day. But they need a large number of prospects for their business to make a profit and hopefully grow. Their percentage of new customers is small.

Remember, look at the numbers that make sense for your business. You can build a solid, profitable business from a small list. But it all starts with building the database!