One of the most effective internet marketing methods is gathering emails to build a list of prospects. You can then either send individual (personal) messages and/or send messages to the entire list occasionally or on a regular basis. This allows you to keep your products or services in front of prospects along with the opportunity to build a relationship with them.

Build your list by gathering contact info
To use your website to generate a list of prospects, you can take many different avenues:

Offer something for free (PDF, white paper, eBook) to anyone who submits their name and email address
Add a “Newsletter sign-up” form in prominent places on your site
Add a checkbox to receive regular emails on your contact form
Run a contest, take a survey, or any other way to gather addresses to add to the list.

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Once on the list, be sure that any regular emails allow for people to “opt out” so that you don’t start to annoy potential customers. As long as it is the truth, tell them that their contact information will not be sold or shared. Display a privacy policy to put visitors at ease.

Marketing to your email list
The larger the database, the more valuable it is and the more worthwhile it is to take an organized approach to converting visitors into customers or to ensure a greater re-sale rate. Individual or random messages can take lots of time. Sending bulk emails in text or html format allow you to better track the information that is being sent out and give you more bang for the buck when you have timely promotions or new product announcements.

Give FREE stuff or something of value!
To ensure that people actually read your messages (and maybe even pass them on to friends), be sure to include useful information or offers that contain real value. Don’t just try to sell, sell, sell or your messages will be ignored or sent to their spam folder.

Email marketing vendors
You should consider one of the popular email marketing software solutions to easily send bulk emails, formatted monthly newsletters and auto-responders to build your customer or prospect mail list. They save time by providing newsletter templates that are easily customized with your logo, images, and information. Lists are automatically updated. Price depends on the number of contacts on your list and usually start at $9.95 per month or less.

Start a free trial newsletter
Get more info or start a free trial for Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or iContact at our email marketing page.

Here are some of the benefits, according to iContact’s website:

iContact has whitelist agreements with major ISPs so our clients can enjoy industry-leading deliverability. A third-party company, Pivotal Veracity, scores our email deliverability rates between 98%-99%.

Track the performance of your email blasts at a glance with our charts and graphs that are populated in real time.

Use one of our 250 professionally designed email newsletter templates or one of your own for beautiful permission-based email marketing campaigns.

Easily set up, organize, and leverage your mailing list to boost your email marketing into overdrive!

iContact combines sophisticated features such as surveys, autoresponders, and RSS feeds into one easy-to-use all-inclusive product.

Ready to start a free trial? Check out Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or iContact at our email marketing page.

Internet Marketing usually refers to an eCommerce site, but the concept can be used by any business or organization.

You may have a home business, side business, MLM (Network Marketing, Direct Marketing) business or even an individual product or service you wish to promote. “Internet Marketing” is simply the online promotional techniques to increase traffic to the website you’ve created for it.

How To Make Money in MLM / Network Marketing Even If You’re Not A Salesman!

Network Marketing (aka Multi-Level Marketing or MLM) can be the ideal home-based business. On the surface, the lucrative cash earnings potential for Network Marketing draws our interest. But we all realize that a certain amount of sales skills are necessary for any business to be successful. This is even more true with MLM, since product prices are often higher than the retail store competitors.

You don’t have to have a “Type A” personality to make money!
There are so many Network Marketing opportunities around that we’ve all come into contact with a friend or relative “trying to sell us something”. This brings up all the negative feelings associated with “in your face” salesmanship where the prospect often feels so uncomfortable that they may not even want to hear about something they’d otherwise be interested in.

These days, with so many product and service options, and everything accessible through the internet, many of us would prefer to make our own decisions instead of being sold something by a salesman (especially when he’s your brother-in-law). To take advantage of people’s ability and desire to make their own decisions, we need to offer our product instead of sell it. For softer spoken (or even reserved) MLM’ers, go for the soft sale, rather than the hard one for better results. Here’s a list of ways to do that successfully:

1. Market a product you believe in, and use it!
2. Allow prospects to find you, from around your area or around the world.
3. Be your own affiliate, for an even softer sell.
4. Email marketing makes MLM more personal.
5. Prove that you are reputable and proficient in your field.
6. Treat it like a REAL business.

See details of this list here.

Email Marketing and Newsletters

Internet Marketing- Your Home Business