"Building your list is even more important in a tough economic environment," writes Gail Goodman of Entrepreneur.com. "Your list is your pre-qualified target audience. They know you and your products and services, and they’ve bought from you in the past."

"They’re an easier sell and a source of referrals, she adds. "That’s why email marketing is still the most effective tool in your marketing mix. For fractions of a penny per person, you can stay in touch with your best customers. So when they’re ready to buy — even in a down economy — they’ll think of your business first."

Last summer, it was noted that social networking was significantly impacting emailmarketing efforts. Eventually, a study found that social networks had actually become more popular than email. That is why it can pay to integrate your social media marketing with your email marketing.

"In order to increase sales, small businesses want to keep existing customers while creating more sales ops – email helps small businesses doing that," Steve Adams, VP of Marketing with email marketing company Campaigner told me in a recent interview for SmallBuzinessNewz.

"Although social media marketing is becoming more and more popular, recent studies are finding that people still like and want to receive emails," he said. "For example a study by Epsilon and ROI Research entitled “Beyond the Click: The Indirect Value of Email” found that 84 percent of recipients liked receiving email from companies with whom they’ve subscribed to their e-newsletters. Another stat to note is from an Aberdeen report, which states that email marketing is ranked the number one recessionary marketing tool. Although there are other marketing techniques gaining popularity, email marketing is here to stay, especially for small businesses."

Tips

- Track you campaigns. A recent study from eROI showed that 18% of email marketers in the US were not tracking their campaigns. Things that should be tracked include delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and conversion rate. More on this here.

- Consider spam filters. Spam filters are a hurdle all email marketers have to clear, and this even includes legitimate ones. Just because you are a legitimate email marketer, this does not mean you will make it through the filters your audience and their service providers have set up. For some specific tips on dealing with this, refer to my SBN article from last year.

- Pay special attention to subject lines and from lines. These things are critical to your open rate. A clear and familiar from line is important simply for the trust factor. People want to know who they are getting mail from before they open it. The subject line is where it gets a little trickier. You have to create subject lines that make people care enough to open it. More on subject lines.

- Provide quality content. Keep your content interesting and relevant to your audience. Think about why they would have signed up to receive messages from you in the first place.

- Consider the timing of messages. Timing can be a factor in a successful campaign. Not only marketing based on events or holidays, but also the time of day. If you are targeting an audience in the UK, for example, but you are sending from the US, you need to take time zones into consideration, and depending on who you are hoping to reach, try to get your messages sent at the right time of day. Are you hoping to catch people at the office? Get your messages out early. Are you hoping to get them after work? Maybe later is fine.

It doesn’t end with these tips. There are tons of tools and applications that can help you optimize your email marketing campaigns. A lot of it requires you to use your head though. Get to know your audience, and try to judge what will keep them engaged.

In order to enter the contest that you set up, the entrant should be required to give their first name and email address. You can set up a simple form using the HTML from your autoresponder. The autoresponder would send a short notice letting them know that they have been entered.

What kind of contest should you hold? That depends entirely on you. You can adapt most contests to nearly any theme, so take a look at the list below and see which fits your readership best.

- Essay contest. You could use this as a content builder as well. Set a word limit, usually 400-1,000 words is good and easily publishable and let your visitors know the rules, what your theme is, entry deadline and what is not acceptable (i.e. pornographic essays, violence, etc.). You should also specify what you can do with the entries, if you will retain all rights, or if the author can publish the work elsewhere.

- Photo contest. You might set up three or four categories depending on your site theme. For example, on a mother’s site, you could have a category for pets, for kids and for still-life in the home. This is a good way to get content as well for your website.

- Link draw. This is a useful way to promote your website. In order to enter, the visitor must place a link to your site on his own website and then send you the URL where the link is located. Draw a name at the end of each month (or week) to choose the winner.

- Email draw. If you don’t want to be reviewing photos and entries, just have visitors enter their email address and draw from a hat on the chosen day.

You could charge for people to enter your contest, but that would limit it’s potential, so I don’t recommend it. Instead, offer free entries and you’ll build your list faster, which is the point after all.

Unless you already have a huge number of visitors to your website, you’ll need to promote elsewhere. There are lots of contest directories, just do a quick search on Google. Try to submit to 3-5 directories per day.

As for prizes, that could be anything at all, but you’ll find that info products are the easiest to deal with. Offering a free ebook (that would normally be sold) to your winners is a good way to get them to enter.

You could also offer one of the following:

- Free inscription to your paid e-course.

- A product related to your theme (i.e. gourmet cat food for a pet site contest).

- Free membership to your paid membership site.

- A year-long winner’s link from your main page

- A free ad for a month in your ezine

- A month’s worth of advertising on your website

- A service related to your theme (i.e. a website critique for a webmaster contest)

The prize will depend on what your theme is and what you already have on hand to offer. I don’t recommend running out and buying a bunch of cameras to give away just for a contest! If you are set on real world prizes and don’t mind paying a bit, consider a dropshipper.

Give people a couple months until the deadline so the word can really get out. That way you’ll end up with more subscribers. Make the contest appealing, with really great prizes and a snappy name and you’ll build your list quickly.

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Genesis Davies is freelance writer living on the side of a volcano in Guatemala. Learn more about opt in lists.

You bet it is. Without a mailing list you are at the mercy of the search engines and their ever changing regulations. Don’t get me wrong, doing your SEO is vital to your business but it’s not the end of the story.

If you don’t have a mailing list, your online business, once it gets off the ground, will eventually die. You can not sustain business without a customer base. Online or offline, repeat customers are the backbone of any business. It’s even more important online because the competition is greater and they probably have a list.

Your list is your best form of advertisement. The people who are on your list have been to your site and have an interest in your topic. You will have to remind them on a regular basis that your site is a place they like to visit.

Don’t bookmarks and favorites lists work the same way?

Not even close.

What happens when you get information about the most exciting piece of software ever created? You join the affiliate program to promote the software and add a link to your website Now you have to hope someone will find it and click on it. Of course, there is a lot of other information on your website so the likely hood of every one who comes to your site seeing that fantastic offer is pretty slim.

Let’s go even one step further. Lets say the super software is very cheap right now but the price is going up in a week. Now you add this information to your website and have to remember to go back and change it in a week to reflect the new price. If you forget to do this, you are going to get a lot of angry emails when your visitors buy the software and pay a lot more than you were advertising.

OK, do you can see where you are going to have problems actually getting any sales from the super software?

Now, let’s go back to the first moment you heard about the super software and the fantastic price. You join the affiliate program and immediately send a notice about this great offer out to your list.

The people on your list get an email. They open the email and see one offer. A super special offer with an unbeatable price. They don’t see any other interesting information that may distract them. They see your offer and nothing else. They are totally focused on what you have presented to them. You tell them that this offer has a special price and they will have to act fast or pay more later.

Out of all the people who open your email, how many do you think are going to see this offer? 100% right? Of course. There isn’t anything else to see. You have just raised your profit potential by a huge margin.

Can you see how you are losing money by only having your website and not having a list? It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? So, we’re all in agreement, you do need a list.

How do you get this list?

First I want to tell you what you don’t do. You don’t go out and buy a safe list from some email address collector. These people don’t want your email and you will be reported for spamming. You will have to build your list from people who are interested in your business.

Ask yourself this… who is interested in what you have to offer? The people who come to your website right? Yes! These people found your website by either doing a search in the search engines or were told about you from another site or a friend. In any case, they came to your site because you have the type of information that they are interested in.

While they are there, offer them the opportunity to join your mailing list. Have a sign up form on every page in a very prominent place. Tell your visitors that you will send them valuable information when it is available in exchange for their name and email address.

Some people think you should offer a free incentive to get people to join your list. There is a lot of controversy on this subject. You will have to decide what is right for you.

The only thing I offer people for joining my lists is future information and offers. The people who join most of my lists know I am going to try to sell them something so when they see an email from me, they aren’t surprised when I ask them to get their credit card.

Be honest right from the start. Don’t make your list joiners think they are on a list of freebies if you are planning on selling them products. They will quit the list as soon as you send your first offer. Trying to trick people to join your list will leave you with a bunch of angry subscribers and no sales.

If your website looks professional and you have valid information on your site, people will want to hear from you again. They will gladly join your list so they won’t miss the great information you have to offer.

Treat your business like a business, not a scam, and you will prosper.

Now go build your list before you lose any more money.

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Margaret Albright is the webmaster and editor for the website Know It All Affiliates, http://www.knowitallaffiliates.com/list-building.htm Helping you create your internet empire one site at a time.