To build and maintain your opt-in list requires constant attention.

As either a bricks and mortar or a cyber space business it is always easier and more cost effective to promote to your warm market.

Many shops and department stores provide debit-cards and even membership cards for their regular customers.

These return customers are classed as your warm market. It is far cheaper to post out a special promotion to existing customers as opposed to sending out many thousands of leaflets covering the whole city in the hope of obtaining new customers.

It boils down to you Return On Investment or 'ROI'

Its far more profitable to invest a thousand dollars in sending a special discount offer to existing customers or warm list.

In a bricks and mortar business your list will almost always be made up of existing customers. The other way to build a list is to go to a Trade Fair or show and provide forms with a lucky draw. You are providing a prize and asking potential customers to fill out your form that may ask people to guess the number of jelly beans in the jar or to answer a question about your product which is on display.

Running a business on the Internet is similar to running a business in a store except some of the rules are different.

To build your list on the Internet can be achieved in a number of ways.

5 Tips to building a list.

1. Buy leads. Very simple, by purchasing quality bulk numbers of prospects to place in your marketing campaign.

2. Own and promote your own website and then promote it some more.

3. Have some way of collecting peoples information like providing a service or offering a free gift for people who fill in a form.

4.Create your own weekly newsletter that contains useful and relevant information related to the content of your Web site. Provide a form for your Web site visitors to receive your Newsletter.

5. Networking with others on the internet. You can become a member of the Ryze.com or PowerfullIntentions.com networks and even ICQ and other internet messengers to meet and form friendships or network with other members.

5 Tips to maintain and keep your list healthy and interested in your product, service or ...

1. Keep in contact with your list on a regular basis, sent them a weekly or monthly newsletter with helpful tips and product news.

2. Send out special offers from time to time.

3. Provide information of value to make your prospects or customers life easier.

4. Ask your readers a question that requires either visiting a web page at your site or send you an email for a bonus or special report, just to see if people are reading the email you are sending to them.

5. Give something useful away for free.

Once you have your own list there will always be people opting out so you have to continually build and maintain your list. If anyone sends you an email about a problem they are experiencing and ask for your help, always go that extra mile. If I were to be ask about headlines or keywords on on a persons site, I will visit their site and make a point of complementing them on one or two of the positive things I see on their site.

Personally publishing my own weekly ezine I have people every week asking for help. Two questions that stand out are firstly "How does one check what the opposition is doing?" This was in relation to promoting your site and checking to see how others are marketing similar products.

This person was searching for promotion ideas and found one of my articles listed in an ezine directory. This person has a sports Web site and would not have normally read this ezine. My thought here is that you may not necessarily need to publish a weekly or monthly newsletter as long as you write articles and send them out to article directories or write in forums that deal with the product or service you are promoting.

The second person asked me this week about site map creation software after finding an article I wrote some months ago about site maps. I had not even realized there was such a software available. I thought I had trouble keeping a site map up to date for a site containing 200 pages but this lady had 800 pages of graphics so I instantly knew the problem she was facing.

These two people used a search engine and found 2 of my articles and had contacted me asking for my help. I don't claim to be an expert but in saying that I usually spend time researching an article - topic if I am not familiar with it.

BUT as these two people found what I had written on the topic they were having difficulty with, and some how my articles managed to get listed in search engines among the tens of thousands of other similar pages and read by these two people.

Well, maybe I do have some skills after all, with search engines, Web sites, promotion and writing but I wouldn't go as far as to say I was an expert in these fields, just that I have researched enough to know a little more than the basics. You can do the same as the Internet is a 20 lane super information Highway. The information is there, its just a matter of finding it.

Guess what - I bet you have Skills that I don't have, skills that you can use to help and share with others too.

The 2 most important factors in any Internet Entrepreneurs success is owning your own Web site and your own list.

May your week be a successful one.

PETER GREEN, Editor of ~ The INDEX ~ ezine.

Editor@Internet-income-index.com

http://www.Internet-Income-Index.com

Your Free Weekly Internet Marketing News, Ideas, Resources and Sources Ezine.