Your list is your life. If you do not have a list of customers and prospects, you may do okay in your business but you won't be great. The one and only thing that separates great marketers from okay marketers is the effort great marketers put into building their list of prospects and customers.

Say you sell an ebook on internet business. If it sells for $27 you make a nice profit. But if you don't collect customer and prospect emails, $27 is all you will ever make.

A better idea is to build an opt-in email list of people who like the topic you will be informing them. Give away a free report or an email course as a way to get subscriptions. Then, when they buy your $27 ebook, you make a profit and can keep marketing to them. If they don't buy your ebook, you don't lose them forever. As long as they stay subscribed, you can market to them again and again.

So how can you build your opt-in email list? Here are three super tips to get you started.

1. Use a signature file in your email correspondence. If you market online, chances are you send a lot of email. Add a signature advertising your list to your outgoing email. That way, everyone who receives an email from you will also see, in your signature, an ad for your list. For example, your signature could say, "Learn how to drive targeted traffic to your website. Send a blank email to xyz@yoursite.com."

2. Get listed in ezine directories. As long as you offer an email course, this shouldn't be a problem. Do a search for "ezine directories," visit as many as you like, and sign up for most of them. These directories do work.

3. Write articles for distribution. This article is designed to pique your interest enough that you will visit my site and sign up for my list. It wasn't hard to write. Article topics are all around you. For example, next time you visit your favorite forum, take one of the threads, digest it, and write an article based on that thread. When you distribute your articles, you syndicate your content and have a greater chance of people finding your website and signing up for your list because they are interested in your expertise and topic.

These super-tips are more than enough to get you started on building your list.

Jeremy M. Hoover gives away FREE marketing information at his website. Click here NOW to receive your free gifts as a "thank you" for reading this article.