Follow the steps laid out here to build a responsive list.

1. Create Free Content

Your aim is to have people sign up to your opt-in form on your website. So you need to give them a reason for doing so. The best thing to do is create a report for them as a gift for signing up to your newsletter.

This can be a PDF report with 10 pages or more, or an email series delivering a 10 part lesson on a certain topic your visitors are interested in.

If you absolutely struggle with writing content on your niche, then purchase 3 master resale rights products which you can modify and add your name to them. Offer these 3 books as a gift for signing up to your list.

The content which the subscribers are signing up for, has to be valuable. You also need to give the subscribers the rights to pass these gifts to other friends or their lists if needed.

If the content is good, then your subscribers will like and trust you. People tend to buy from people they like and trust.

When they pass the content to their friends or list, you have built more publicity for yourself and reach out to more prospects.

2. Create An Opt-in Page

Now you need to create an opt-in page where people can sign up for your newsletter. This is the page where you get your subscribers. You need to make sure that you stress the benefits of signing up to your newsletter and the gifts they receive for signing up.

If you don't have skills in creating an opt-in page, then I suggest you to visit freelance websites such as Scriptlance and Elance and pay around $30 to set one up for you quickly. Give them the headline and copy of the opt-in page and ask them to help to design a clean webpage displaying this. Alternatively, you can place the opt-in page on your blog which will appear in all your posts.

You need to look at the final webpage and ask if you yourself will sign up to the list after seeing the benefits of subscribing.

3. Get A Web Hosting And Autoresponder Account

I would advise you to choose a respectable paid web hosting account with no adverts and good support service.

To capture the email addresses you need to subscribe to an autoresponder service. Choose one which is reliable, used by successful people in your field and has many functions a standard autoresponder has such as tracking email which are opened and high deliverability rates.

Don't try and save money by choosing a cheap autoresponder service. You rely on this service for a critical part of your business.

4. Writing The Email Series

Once the visitor has opted in, your autoresponder should start to send them messages periodically for about a month or two. With these emails, you'll need to remind them of the download link and also provide them with good content at least twice a week. After a month, you can then send out a promotion. This is how you build a relationship with the list. There's no point in having a list if they don't like and ignore you.

5. Driving Traffic To Your Opt-In Page

Now that everything is setup, all you need to do now is to drive traffic to that opt-in page. Once the visitors see the gift you are offering them to sign up, they should opt in.

One of the ways you can drive traffic to a website is to write articles and distribute them. There's no-cost in writing articles just the time spend writing it and submitting it to ezine directories and newsletter publishers.

You can also drive traffic by posting to forums with your signature advertising your opt-in page. There are many other ways which are too detailed to discuss here. You need to continuously learn how to drive traffic to your opt-in page. But right now you have all the knowledge to start getting ready to build your list.

You can see an example of this list building technique where a gift is offered for people signing up for the newsletter at http://www.trafficbeast.com