We are a small B2B that specializes in creating tradeshow exhibits and other marketing displays. We would like to develop an opt-in database for e-marketing our free educational webinars. Subject matter is highly relevant and helps position us as expert resources in the field. There is little sales pitch involved and so far we have had a good response. The problem is we have a small contact list and want to grow this quickly. We can buy good strategic lists and use them for e-marketing for a limited period of time, but need to know the best tools and steps to capture an interested audience, build up a good clean database, and move forward positioning ourselves in this market with prospective clients. We’re late adopters to all of the new media, so please keep your responses in lay-terms.

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Jay’s Answer: The best way to build is a list is to give the reader a compelling reason to sign up. That means you need to target your list and identify their pain (and position yourself as having the solution). To sign up with you, you need to give them something of value that they need (for example, price the webinars at $39.95, but provide 2 free webinars for those subscribing, etc.) Also, the more information you request for sign up, the fewer the sign ups you’ll actually get.