If I were to suggest that the most frequent question regarding email lists is what details to record, no one would assume I had been keeping records on what questions we had been asked. The statement is nothing more than a guess although based on experience. If money had been involved I would have been ticking boxes.

In essence, the only essential detail required for an email list is an email address. If you are investing in a business then you want to be ticking a few boxes yourself. So let's talk about which ones.

Much will depend on your product. If you are pushing a course on basic management techniques then, presumably, you would want to know if your subscribers were aspirant managers. Your problem is how to work out which ones see themselves as tomorrow's people.

You might know a way to put this in a questionnaire without seeming patronising but there is a way of finding out for the rest of us. All you need to do is to keep your email list records up to date.

If you send an email to all your subscribers and get a return of some 5% then what you need to do is to find common factors. If you have sufficient information on your email lists then it will be apparent. If you haven't then get more data.

Who goes on activity holidays? Let us ignore the extreme events for those who have it in for their life insurance companies and instead concentrate on tennis, skiing or swimming. For many this would be extreme.

From my experience there is no specific age range. The more mature get to the courts early and the younger ones follow once the hangover has disappeared. So what is their common feature?

With fully populated email lists you might well find that they have all bought a certain trainer that you provide or maybe they went on to your website to look at facilities. You won't kn