If you want to succeed on the internet you need to have a large email marketing list to work with. The adage that says that the money is in the list holds just as true today as it did five years ago. There are several ways to build your list of email addresses and all you have to do is look how others are building their list, use their techniques while coming up with your own ideas.

There are many ways to build your list and you can follow the tactics used by other internet marketers and you too can develop your own ways to increase your list. The fact is that email messages are as effective as ever when it comes to selling products and services on the internet. You probably entered the internet marketing world because you were part of some internet marketers email list and decided that online marketing could work for you.

There are many ways to build your email list, but it all starts with what is known in the internet marketing business as an ethical bribe. You have to give something of value in order for your website visitor to part with their contact information. Most internet users are savvy to the opt-in page routine. They know that if they enter their email address that they will start receiving information. This is why you have to provide something of value on your opt-in page.

Depending on your target market, you might be offering a free eBook, a free report, or a free newsletter. You need to ask yourself this objective question when you are coming up with your free offer. ?Would you sign-up for what you are offering if you came across the offer on the internet?? If you hesitate with your answer then you know that your website visitor will hesitate as well and chances are you will not get that person?s contact information.

Once you start to build your list, use it to build relationships. What is so important about relationships you might ask? People would rather buy from someone that they know rather than buy from someone they do not know. When you send out your messages, do not send messages to a group but, to an individual. Speak to the individual in your message and not to the group.

When you send personalized messages to your ?email list? you will start building relationships. The fact is that people want to buy from people they know and not from strangers. Let the people on your list get to know you, the good and the bad.

You need not use your contact list as a substitute for therapy sessions but, share yourself in your messages and people will get to know you. Think of it in terms of having a brick and mortar business like a restaurant. If you have a venue that seats fifty people and each night forty people you know personally come to eat at your establishment, would you have a successful business?

Of course it would because you can count on people you know coming to your establishment each day and spending money. The same holds true with your email list when you send out promotional messages. You can rest assure that a large group of people who have a relationship with you are reading what you have for sale and people like to buy from people they know.