Incoming and outgoing phone calls and personal meetings are great places to collect email addresses and permission to send when you use the right language. When someone calls your business or meets you in person to ask about your products or services, answer their question and then use a turnaround line to ask them for their email address. A turnaround line is a short phrase that changes the subject of the conversation without sounding like you are interrupting the flow of the conversation.
Use the following examples of turnaround lines as a guide to making your phone calls and personal meetings a source of new email list subscribers.
- “By the way…” Use this turnaround line toward the end of a conversation to ask for an email list subscription. For example, a retail store that receives a call asking how late the store is open might end the call by saying, “By the way… if you would be so kind as to share your email address with us, we can notify you when we have extended hours and special offers. It that ok?”
- “That’s a great question…” Use this turnaround line when someone asks you a question that indicates interest in a product or service. For example, when a prospective client asks a consultant whether he or she knows anything about mobile email marketing, the consultant might answer that question by saying, “That’s a great question… would you like to be on my mobile marketing tips email list?” After the prospective client answers yes or no, the consultant can then answer the question directly.
- “That reminds me…” Use this turnaround line when someone makes a statement that relates to one of your products or services. For example, when someone calls tech support and states that they are having trouble with their product, the support representative might say, “That reminds me… would you like to receive our free monthly tech-tips newsletter?”
Creating your own personalized turnaround lines is easy. Just listen for them in your regular conversations and apply them to your phone calls and meetings. Make sure you also train your employees to use turnaround lines on the phone, in emails, and in personal conversations to keep the permission-based email addresses moving in to your email database.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s local expert program.
