Referrals are one of the best ways to grow your business--and your marketing list. While it would be an overstatement to say that everyone in Kansas City knows everyone else, there are very few "degrees of separation" between any two business-people in our town--and all (or almost all) of those business-people have computers. If you aren't sending them email marketing messages, someone else is...

Consider turning to people who already know, like and trust you for leads on new local prospects who might value your communications.

Kansas City is a personable sort of town. Even people who use computers day and night like to get out and socialize. The odds are good that these events will serve as a rich source of connections for your email marketing list.

How do you turn an in-person meeting into an online business relationship?

As you develop a systematic strategy for growing your email marketing list, the first place you should look is the Internet. This may be your number one source for new contacts.

While physical location may often seem irrelevant on the Web, if you do business in person, then it is extremely relevant to your prospects and customers. A company located in Kansas City, Missouri will want to let potential contacts in Lee's Summit, Grandview, Overland Park, Leawood, Olatha, Lenexa, and Kansas City, Kansas know that the company is a local business.

The better your email list, the more effective will be your email marketing.

There are specific steps you can take to build your list--ways to strengthen your connections with customers and potential customers that may work even better in a friendly community like Kansas City than they do in other parts of the country.

The most rigorous form of explicit email marketing permission is known as "confirmed" permission.

Permission is confirmed when your prospect or customer not only signs up for your list, but also clicks a link in a special confirmation email, verifying that he or she does indeed want to receive your email communications.