Have you thought about suggesting existing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms? While they all have learning curves to tackle, they will still surely be time savers compared to starting from scratch.

I'm a big fan of Infusionsoft and a Certified Partner but if a robust solution like that is too big for your needs then there are others like Hubspot CRM or even Insightly.

They each manage contacts like a boss however they will each also have certain pros and cons that you'll want to research for your specific needs as well.

Hi, my name is Erik and I'm a Senior Database Architect working in marketing and employee productivity since more than 15 years.

Buildind a B2C database of potential customer can be a real challenge. My suggestion is to start with public data websites. It's all about doing researches and keep the data clean so it's usable.

If you need to have a structured database built with the informations you are looking for I'm available to help. Do not hesitate to send me a call request.

Regards,

Erik

Hey There,

Great question and a challenge almost any business faces today. You're starting off on the right path by realizing that an email list is the first place to start and the foundation for selling your online courses.

The first thing you'll want to do is make sure you're strategies and tactical plans are aligned to the Australian laws regarding email marketing. You can find those here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam_legislation_by_country (as well as those for other countries).

The second important element to keep in mind is email best-practices. Regardless of what you can or can't do according to the law, there is a wealth of proven tactics and best-practices that will help start off building your email list correctly.

This isn't legal advice, but from what I understand, you'll need to ensure you have permission from users before you can add them to your email list. I can share some basic ideas you'll want to explore to build a permission database from scratch, but first I should be clear -- you really do not want to buy an email list. There are ways to reach to established lists that are within best-practices, but avoid paying for a list you bring into your email marketing system. This will cause more long-term harm and increase your cost of email marketing over the long run.

To start building your list, I would highly encourage your client to create and execute a content marketing plan. By establishing narrow nitch-topic content websites (one for moms returning to the workforce, another one for convicts needing online training). These website would then provide multiple opportunities to "sign up for emails". Providing a simple or intangible giveaway is a good way to incent people to sign up.

And by using SEO best-practices, these content websites will attract the right audience, and get you going in establishing your email list.

Under the "content marketing" tactic, there are hundreds of approaches you might take. For example, you might offer a free webinar to your target audience sharing samples of the training offered. You can also partner with existing content publishers to promote your client's content and the webinar, getting them to email their lists. Once this audience is on your client's website, they can opt-in to your lists.

There really are no major short cuts to building your list. The danger of "buying" a third party list is extensive, and will hurt your marketing efforts over the long run. To learn more, do a search for "email deliverability best-practices'. There should be plenty on the topic online.

Hope this gives you some ideas to start exploring. Best of luck with your client's project.