In order to make a success of your website or online

business, it is obvious that you will need customers.

Although everyone who visits your page will not become

a customer, they must have some interest in your

product or service that brought them there in the

first place and therefore they are a potential

customer. Potential customers are much more likely to

become actual customers if you make an effort to keep

in touch with them. This essential marketing tool is

called and opt-in list.

An opt-in list will allow you to keep track of your

potential customers by obtaining their email address

in order to keep them informed about the latest

updates for your product or service. You can create

your own opt-in list or you can use an opt-in list

creator that is available online from several sources.

The benefits of creating your own opt-in list is that

you will be able to send personal messages to the

potential customers and they will not need to do

anything, whereas with commercial opt-in lists, the

customer will receive a generated message and will be

required to verify their acceptance of the message.

An important part of creating a successful opt-in list

is to keep in mind that potential customer will visit

your site from many places and may not see your

homepage. Therefore it is imperative to have the

ability to subscribe to the mailing list from all

pages of your site. You should not, however, make the

subscription information a focus point of every page.

It is a good idea to put it at the bottom or top of

the page where it is visible but not distracting. It

is also a good idea to promote your mailing list by

using a give-away. You could offer a service, a

discount, or an ebook. You can also drive potential

subscriber to join your mailing list by writing

articles that will benefit the reader and at the same

time, build your credibly as an expert. You can

include the subscription information in the byline of

the articles. You could also write an ebook with your

subscription information on each page, which will

allow the customer to easily access the information

and join the list with ease.

Once you have created the mailing list and now have

your potential customers within your grasp it is your

responsibility to keep them updated and interested.

Provide them with quality information that is

up-to-date and of interest to them. Offer discounts

or a newsletter, something that the reader can use.

This will keep them interested and will drive them to

your site over and over, eventually they may make a

purchase and if not, they will be informed enough to

use word of mouth advertising for your site.