My friend Jeremy over at Being a Starving Graphic Artist Sucks asks, Do You Assume that Everyone Wants to Regularly Hear about Your Creative Freelancing Business?
Delete the words “Creative Freelancing,” and you’ll find it’s an effective question that every small businessperson should be asking themselves. The rules are:
- Just because they bought from you doesn’t mean they want your marketing material.
- Just because they met you at an event doesn’t mean they want your marketing material.
- Just because they emailed you doesn’t mean they want your marketing material.
The best practice here is to use a double-opt-in newsletter provider and allow clients to sign themselves up. I use MailChimp (see examples here) and wrote software to allow Zen Cart users to use MailChimp too. There are many offerings in this space, but I think MailChimp is the best one for SMEs.
