• Use e-mail to introduce new products.
• Conduct customer satisfaction surveys.
• Send notices when your Web site is updated.
• Give advance notice of sales exclusively to your e-mail list.
• Announce operating hour changes.
• Use e-mail to learn what valued customers and prospects want from you.
• Use e-mail to promise you will give them what they want as long as they remain bona fide members of your opt-in mailing list.

Cultivate an ongoing relationship by offering these types of messages in a periodic e-mail newsletter replete with product updates, news and special offers.

E-mail newsletters, sometimes called e-zines, can be as elementary as notification of when your Web site is updated, or as elaborate as a magazine with news, promotions and ads tailored to the particular interests of registered visitors.

To solicit e-mail addresses, ask Web site visitors to register if they are interested in being contacted periodically, just as you would ask customers to give permission for regular mail or telephone follow-ups. Keep the registration form brief, but be sure to include questions to get the details you need to identify what type of information to send to different segments of your subscription base.

For example, your e-zine might have different editions, perhaps one for information about your home product line and another for those interested in your industrial strength products.

The key is to tailor your e-zine to customers’ preferences. Paper and ink newsletters are more expensive and difficult to tailor. But electronic cutting and pasting and the lack of printing and postage costs make different editions of your e-zine more practical for each market segment.

Once you have built an opt-in list of prospects and customers, lure them back to your Web site or to your storefront with periodic mailings.