If your marketing has gotten complicated and you find yourself doing less and hating it more, it might be time to get back to basics.

Here goes:

One of your most important marketing tasks is to continually build your list of prospective clients and professional contacts. This is essential because of attrition. The list you had yesterday won’t be big enough or “ready” enough tomorrow.

You know there are many ways to build your list and, no doubt, you’ve used some of them in the past.

The question is, what are you doing now?

In case you aren’t doing much (or anything) right now and you want a place to start or re-start (or expand) your list building activities, here are 5 simple but effective options to consider.

Networking

You connect with people (prospective clients, referral sources, centers of influence) in your target market, find out what they want and how you can help them, and build a relationship with them, leading to engagements, referrals, and joint venture marketing activities.

Social media

This is “networking” done online.

You find groups of people in your target market, learn about the groups and the people in them, introduce yourself, and then take your “conversations” offline, e.g., phone, meet for coffee.

And/or, you can offer a free report or another lead magnet to people in the group and send them to your web page to opt-in to your list.

Advertising

If you have more money than time, advertising is a great way to scale up your list building and lead generation. There are many ways to do it and many experts who can advise you and help you set up and run your campaigns.

Media exposure

Find podcasts, blogs, and publications in your target market and get yourself interviewed. You can also submit articles and guest posts and comment on existing posts and articles.

Leverage existing contacts

This is the easiest and a great place to start. Ask the people who are already on your list to share your content, invite their friends or colleagues to your webinar or event, check out the content on your blog, or subscribe to your video channel or podcast.

So, there you go. A few places to start (or re-start) your list building.

Of course, having a list doesn’t mean you’re done. You need to stay in touch with the people on your list.

I recommend email.