With all the options available to you today to market your law firm, one of the cheapest and most effective is email marketing.  However, if you don’t have a great list of clients and prospects to send those emails to, there’s no way your email marketing efforts will be productive.

The best email lists contain the names of people you have already done business with or who have had some type of interaction with you.  These are better than paid lists since you are already known to them — your emails won’t be a “cold call.”

So how do you keep adding to that list to expand your sphere of influence?  Here are 5 easy ways:

1. Find opportunities to speak and present. Each time you do, make sure you collect the names and email address of everyone at the events. If for some reason the organizer will not give you this information, do a give-away (free consultation, free report) during your presentation. In order for individuals to be eligible to receive your give-away, they must give you their business card or their name, number and email.

2. Every time you go to a networking event and collect business cards make sure these individuals are added to your database or e-newsletter list. Don’t worry, if someone gives you their information they are implicitly stating you can send them information. If for some reason they don’t want it, there is always the opportunity for them to unsubscribe or to ask to stop receiving the information.

3. Offer a freemium. On your website you can send people a free report (filled with information that is important and meaningful to them) in exchange for their contact information. You can have this automated so you or someone else is not personally responsible for sending out the article, but it goes automatically after your system gets their info.

4. Any time you send out an e-newsletter, encourage those who receive it to forward it on to anyone they know who can also benefit from the information.  Post your newsletter online with a function that allows people to sign up for future issues and promote the link via social media.

5. Have a “e-newsletter” opt-in form on your website and blog so people who visit these can opt-in to receive your e-newsletter.