Marketers, especially email marketers, are always looking for new and innovative ways to bolster the size of their subscriber database. But often times we begin looking at the long-shots before considering the possibilities closer to your heart (or better yet, your  brand). Your current subscribers, those that are engaged and happy, may be the best place to start when looking for new customers.

You need to have a solid plan of attack before asking your existing customers to evangelize on your behalf though; you do not want to damage relationships with good customers as the result of a bad (or even worse, no) plan. Three things to consider before going where the new customers are:

1. Define and Identify Your Engaged Audience:
   If you cannot define engagement for your subscriber or customer base then you need to take a big step back and do that first. It is only those engaged and happy customers/subscribers that are going to want to talk about your brand – besides, you should be looking to add more engaged and happy customers to your database and they usually travel in packs (not literally of course, but figuratively-for sure!)
2. Leverage Social Channels to Help Spread the Word:
   Once you know where these engaged customers are, you need to help them facilitate the spreading of your brand gospel. They will want to talk to their peers through the channels they naturally use. For some it could be Facebook for others, it is email. Whatever the channel of choice, you need to make it happen, easily.
3. Cultivate New Relationships:
   After your customers starts sending their friends, be sure to treat them well (the existing customers and the friends). Your customers have put faith in you and are leveraging their social clout on your behalf – don’t make them regret it. Have a good plan in place for closing the loop for the existing customer on how they’ve helped or contributed to the brands success – while having a unique and relevant on-boarding or welcome program in place that is specific to the means of entry for the referred customer.

If you’re planning on attending the Online Marketing Summit this February, I will be sure to share with you some fun and successful methods for taking this concept and applying it to your business – it should prove to be both fun and functional. If not,  you’ll miss out – and that would be unfortunate.