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During one of our lively conversations at a recent Mastermind Group meeting, one member lamented the fact that a businesswoman friend of hers wanted to change email services, but couldn't do so because she'd lose her entire mailing list that she'd worked so hard to build. She happened to be using Constant Contact.
"What about her downloaded list?" I asked.
Turned out, she didn't know that you could download your mailing list - and she urged me to write about this in my blog because she said LOTS of people don't know they can do this.
So, for those of you using Constant Contact, iContact, RatePoint, Mailchimp or another other email service, you always have the option to download your mailing lists to your own computer. Look under the Contacts area and then look for "export" or something similar. Follow the steps to download all of your lists, which will typically go into a csv or excel spreadsheet. If you can't find the steps to do this, call the service's help line to find out. That information belongs to you, and you have a right to save a copy of it.
My advice is to make it a practice to download your lists regularly, just as a safeguard - perhaps quarterly, or even monthly if your lists are really moving fast.
Ann Baker is CEO of Publicity Pros, and creator of the small-business publicity building services PR-123, SocialMedia-123, and WebTraffic-123. She is a Savor Mastermind Leader for Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Costa Mesa in Southern California. She can be reached at Ann@PublicityPros.net.
