Would you like to maximize your use of prospect lists, customer lists, and newsletter subscribers without over contacting any one person?

If you run promotions designed to appeal specifically to a narrow group of people, mining your database will help ensure only those readers most interested in any one promotion will receive it–this way, you’ll not only save time and money (by not contacting people unlikely to be interested), but you’ll also keep your customers happier. They’ll know when they receive a promotion from you that it’s likely to be highly relevant to their lives.

What does it mean to mine your database? Take your database (newsletter list, customer database, etc–here we’ll focus on your newsletter list) and look for patterns, demographics, trends, and interests and you’ve just mined your database. Use the information in your promotions and you’ll make more sales and spend less money. (Of course, you can make things a lot more complicated, but this gives us a good starting point.)

To most effectively mine your newsletter subscriber database, you’ll want to follow three steps.

Step One: Ask the Right Questions

When you set up your subscribe form, you can typically add a couple questions for subscribers to answer. Depending on the distribution program you’re using, there may be pre-written questions for you to use.

When deciding which questions to ask, narrow your list down to the three most important questions–you can further define your list later. Statistically, for every question you add to your subscribe form, you’ll lose potential subscribers, so now’s not the time to be especially chatty.

Think of how you approach a subscribe form at a website you’re not familiar with. Do you click away when they require details like your home phone number and household income? Most potential subscribers do. That’s why it’s important that you only ask those questions that really will help you serve readers better. You’ll have plenty of opportunities later to gather more data about readers.

And, whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of believing that the readers who are most willing to answer your questions are most ready to buy–there’s seldom any correlation at this stage (because, again, they simply don’t know you well enough to trust you with much information–whether or not they’re ready to buy now).

Step Two: Track their Behavior

Once you’ve gotten them on your list, the fun begins. Depending on your distribution system, you’ll be able to track each subscriber’s behavior. From click-thrus to opens, you’ll want to analyze this information after each issue.

To use it to your best advantage, try to segment your audience deliberately. For instance, if you’re a real estate agent, you might run an article about making a move easier on children–it’s a safe bet that most of the people who clicks through to read the complete article on your website have kids.

Offering forms, checklists, schedules and worksheets on your website will let you see specific topics each reader is interested in. So, figure out the information you’d like to know about your audience and then determine the best way to attract only people for whom this interest or need is immediate.

For instance, if you offer virtual assistant services and you’d like to target graphic designers with an upcoming promotion, you might offer a “Questions to Ask Clients Before You Start Their Designs” worksheet. By keeping track of who downloads the report, you’ll have a pretty good idea who to send the promotion to.

This type of tracking isn’t fool proof–readers won’t read every issue, they may get distracted while they’re reading (and not click on a link they really wanted to visit), or they may be more curious than average (and so click through to a lot of extraneous pages), but by tracking subscriber’s behavior over a period of time you’ll be able to learn quite a bit.

Step Three: Craft Specific Promotions

Knowing all about your subscribers won’t do you any good if you don’t use the information you’ve gathered to your advantage.

This should take two forms: 1) Letting subscribers guide what you offer by their interests; and, 2) Deciding what to offer and then segmenting your list.

The first form, taking your cue from subscribers, is pretty straightforward. If subscribers express an interest in wrinkle-free pants, you should stock wrinkle-free pants. If click-thrus are high when you offer a link on pet care, you should offer more pet care links.

Giving subscribers only what they ask for, however, means you’ll be missing out on sales you could have made because we don’t always know what we need until someone asks if we need it.

That’s why it’s important to do both–offer them more of what they express interest in, and keep testing to see if interest exists in other areas.

By spending some extra time tracking and profiling subscribers, you’ll find each promotion you run is more successful. Plus, you won’t waste time developing ideas your subscribers won’t be interested in, and are less likely to overlook ideas they’d like.

The three steps: asking the right questions, tracking behavior, and carefully crafting promotions, are key to using your newsletter list more effectively.