One of the common questions I'm asked at eMarketing workshops is "How do I get a data base?". My reply is simple - if you're sending and receiving email, you already have one.

Here's some tips for finding it (!) and making the most of it.

If you have Microsoft Office, and you use Outlook as your email program, you have the basics of a good data base. It's a simple matter of exporting your Outlook 'Contacts' folder into an Excel spreadsheet.

Why export?

Your eMarketing data base is going to be a subset of your contacts. You won't want to send your eNewsletter to everyone in your contacts folder and it's easier to maintain a stand alone data base. It's also a security and backup plan - if you lose Outlook or Excel, you haven't lost everything!

How to export?

With so many versions of Outlook and Outlook Express around, the best advice is use the 'Help' function in your version of Outlook or OE. Outlook and Excel are designed to speak to each other, so in the 'Help' tab, type in the question "export contacts to Excel" or something similar, and you'll get a step by step guide to transferring the data.

When you're looking at the spreadsheet for the first time, delete people you don't want to send your eNewsletter to. Everyone left make up your first eMarketing data base. Congratulations!

Your data base will need to be uploaded into your eNewsletter program, or you may want to outsource this part of the management to someone like Great Look. But do not hand it over to anyone you don't trust!

It is absolutely critical that once you start sending, you remove people from the mailing list who ask to be removed (and keep a record that you have done so). If you're using a management system, it should also log this for you. If you don't do this, your eMarketing can be considered as spam, which is illegal.

Data base value

The value of your data base lies not in its size, but in its accuracy and currency. There's no value in buying a mega data base of people who have never heard of your business - you may as well just stand on a corner and shout! In your own email contacts you have the address of everyone you have done business with, who knows you and who will more than likely give a new service, like an eNewsletter, a go. Someone who knows you is also more likely to forward on your eNewsletter - the electronic equivalent of word of mouth advertising. But the longer you DON'T contact your database, the more it loses value.

Quick rules:

1: Size doesn't matter: fewer, quality contacts will get you more return for your investment.

2: Accuracy and currency is critical: if you're serious about an eMarketing strategy, make time to update, grow and maintain your data base. It will be the basis of your success.

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