Lists - what lists?  These are the lists of prospective purchasers for your products that you will build up over time.  One list per niche.  They are the online marketing equivelent of gold dust!  Why?  Because the easiest people to sell to are people who have already expressed an interest in your product and, even better, those who have already bought something from you.  It's about customer confidence and brand loyalty.

 

 Keep these people in an email list, keep them happy and interested by giving them regular updates, news and freebies, and keep them coming back to buy more.  This is not spamming.  Spamming is sending emails to people who have never said they want to hear from you.  These are people who have agreed to be contacted, and the method used for their agreement is called double opt-in.

 

 

 

You've probably been through this process yourself.  On a website or elsewhere you see for instance a notice like " Sign up for our Newsletter" you click on it and enter your name and email address.  When you've done that the site tells you to check your email inbox.  And there you find an email saying something like "Someone gave us your email, was it you and do you want our newsletter?".  You click 'yes' and that's it.

 

You twice agreed to join and, most importantly, the site knows it has your correct email.  This is the system you will adopt, or you will acquire lists of people who have already been through double opt-in.  There is in fact a triple opt-in aspect: every time you send an email you include at the bottom an option to opt out at any time.

 

 

The obvious - or perhaps not!

 

In their rush to build lists online, many online marketers forget the obvious source of contacts: family, friends, business acquaintences, people you meet.  Tell them what you are doing, tell them you could send more information in a quick email and if they agree and give you their email address, bingo, another one on the list.  Note that this is a double opt-in in person rather than over the net.

 

The next step is to include in your email a passage saying "I'm sure you know lots of people who love Maltese dogs and would be interested in my site.  Don't forget to tell them to email me so I can send them the latest news".  And so the network grows.  Note that you don't ask for other people's email - that's the route to spamming.

 

Never lose a customer

 

Make sure you have a system that captures email addresses as soon you get an enquiry or make a sale.  For example,when you make a download sale, ask for the email address to send the access code to.  There are many ways to capture emails that are not onerous to customers.  Most of them will require the use of an auto-responder so that the customer will get an instant reply even when you are not on line.  Auto-responders have many uses.  At their simplest you set them up to send a single message to each person who emails your address.  All web hostersoffer them as part of their package, or you can buy the software seperately.