Most Internet marketers do not realize the importance of building a huge opt-in mailing list. They figure it is good enough to be making affiliate sales from their website. If you fail to build an opt-in mailing list, you will lose a large percentage of potential customers.

The purpose of building a list of your website visitors is to help you maintain contact with them and develop a relationship with them. Your mission in doing this is to turn as many as you possibly can into your customers. It has been said, and rightly so, that your list is the most valuable asset in your online business. With your list being that important, here are some tips that will make building a quality list possible.

* Offer an incentive to get people to give you their email address and name. This is one of the best ways to encourage people to sign up for your list. I like to offer a special report, free Internet marketing course, or anything else that my visitors find useful. It is essential to give them something for signing up for your list. This tip alone can easily double the number of opt-ins you receive.

I see many people trying to build a list without offering any kind of incentive for signing up which can be a huge mistake. Incentives are so easy to create that it only makes sense to offer one. Anything with a high-perceived value that you offer free will help boost signups significantly. I’ve test both ways of list building and I must say that offering incentives will give you far better results.

* Include a privacy policy. Many people do not opt-in is because they are afraid they will be spammed. Everyone abhors spam. Give your website visitor a guarantee that you will not share or sell their email address with anyone. This will make a huge difference in he number of opt-ins you receive.

* Create many tightly targeted lists. Few people understand the power of a targeted list. By offering different lists on one site you dramatically increase the chance for people opting into your list. One of the lists could be for periodic updates, another could include a tips letter that your market would find helpful, while another could be for a newsletter. No matter what they choose, you get their email address.

Think about what your market might be the most interested in and offer that information or access to it on your site. A visitor may have little interest in your general announcements mailings but be keenly interested in your newsletter. If you do not provided several options that person would have signed up for nothing. Two or three options are plenty. If your visitor has not found something that interests them in your two to three choices they are probably at the wrong page anyway.

* Make all your lists double opt-in. Providing for a double opt-in requires that people first sign up on your site, and then activate their subscription via a confirmation email. Doing this will take away any chance of being labeled a spammer and you will be able to show proof that people actually did requested your emailed information.

An added benefit to you is that the double opt-in method will result in a list that is significantly higher quality than a singe opt-in list. If these people are interested in your offer enough to verify with the confirmation email, they tend to be much more serious and interested in what you have to offer.

By putting the tips mentioned here into use you would be able to build a large, high quality list in a short amount of time. I have used all of these methods and they work very well. I am confident that they will work for you as well.