Welcome to the latest installment of our new weekly blog series, If You Only Do One Thing. Every Monday, we will discuss one thing that you can start doing today to improve your marketing performance.

With so much advice floating around from so many different sources, it can be tough for marketers and small business owners to know where to focus. This series aims to help you out.

Today’s Thing = Collect Your Customers’ Email Addresses

You may be asking yourself, how is this marketing? Or, how does this help?

Here’s how. When you collect your customer’s email address, you set yourself up for easy follow up. You start building an email marketing list that allows you to do concentrated outreach to your past customers.

Why reach out to past customers?

To start, your customers are usually the least costly source of new customers. It costs you far less to retain old customers and get repeat purchases than it does to generate sales from new customers. You can tell them about new offers or special discounts via email anytime.

Secondly, email correspondence with customers can be used to generate referrals. Give them something to be excited about and they are sure to share it with friends. Creating a community of customers is a great way to turn those customers into brand advocates and get them to help you market your company.

Without their email addresses, none of this is possible. So if you only do one thing, you should start collecting your customers’ email addresses.

Share “If You Only Do One Thing” with all your marketing friends, and suggest future topics in the comments below or on Twitter @zheller.