1)    Buying or renting an opt in list. This has been a very popular and effective way for those who are new ebusiness owners. You can gain immediate access to hundreds or thousands of prospects within their target market. You can start to drive people to your sign up page, and see results in days rather then months. Using these lists can prove fatal if not done right. If you just send out a flashy sales copy, expecting just sales, you will just be wasting your money. The statistics show that it takes an average of 5-7 exposures before someone will make a purchase. The objective for using this method should be to collect their contact info by offering a free report or newsletter. Then you can start to build the relationship and eventually turn them into sales.

-important tip- if using this method, make sure you know where and how the email addresses were obtained. You do not want emails that are 'harvested' from free forums and such. You only want email addresses that have requested information. Anything else and you are asking for trouble. You don't want to be accused of spamming and having your ISP shut you down, not to mention the fines you may face.

2) Co registration services. When someone signs up for a particular newsletter from one of these services, your newsletter is also offered for them to sign up at. You can expect to pay between .50-$2.00 per signup. The higher quality, more targeted signup, the higher the price. Here again, don't just try and sell to your new signups right away, build that relationship needed to get the future sales. This is a great way to get laser targeted prospects that have requested information that you have to offer.

3) Using a 'Send to a friend' link. Simply place a link that someone can click to forward the information to a friend or business associate. Make it easy or they won't do it. If you include a link like that, and you offer quality material, your list will start to increase dramatically. Include the link in your emails, articles, ebooks, free reports etc. It's like the old hair shampoo commercial, you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so. You can see how much of an impact this could have on building a quality list with targeted prospects.

However you decide to build your list, do it honestly and ethically. Make sure that you only include those that opt - in or request the information that you are offering. Using these guidelines you can insure long term success.