Newsletters that address a single topic in each issue are great for building a relationship with your customers. Stay on topic and address a need that your target audience has – a piece on pruning roses if you sell garden supplies, for example – and don’t mention your product. Then provide a link to your site with an encouraging come-on like “click here to find more great gardening ideas,” and send them to your website while they’re already in a problem-solving frame of mind.

Another method is to write several newsletters that each focus on different aspects of the same problem. Each newsletter can discuss the issue in depth, and end with a possible solution to the problem. And, of course, a link to send them to your webpage, where they’ll find the perfect product or service to help them out.  Each newsletter should present a problem that your subscribers face, and resolve by you showing them how your product (“click here!”) will provide the answer to their dilemma.

Never, ever send your newsletter to anyone who hasn’t specifically requested it, however. New regulations require all marketers to include an unsubscribe option and a physical address – where your business is located – in email advertising. If you harvest email addresses, buy them from a service, or send mail to your own customers without permission, you could face fines and expulsion from your ISP. You’ll also tarnish your business’s reputation by being branded as a spammer.

The idea is to establish credibility with potential customers, and you won’t do that by spamming them. But if you make your product or service attractive to your target audience, they’ll visit your site, want your product and build your sales. Your subscribers will want to get email from you, and they’ll be genuinely interested in finding out what new products and innovations you have to offer.

By establishing credibility, creating useful content, and providing links to your sales pages, you’ll create a base of happy customers who’ll not only become repeat buyers, but who will recommend you to other people, too.

Building a targeted opt-in list is a simple process, and there are several methods you can use to approach the task. Here are some of the most successful:

1. Offer a free newsletter. This is one of the most common ways of building an opt-in list, and one of the most effective. It’s an excellent way to build a relationship with your target market, by offering useful information on your area of expertise, links to online resources, and other things that will entertain and inform your subscribers. If it’s fun to read and packed with useful content, you’ll be creating a bond with your potential customers.

2. Make it as simple as possible for readers to subscribe. Create an easy-to-use form on one of the side column on your main website page, and on several – or all – of your other pages, making it as simple as possible for visitors to subscribe.

3. Be sure that the content of both your website and your newsletters are high quality. The website content will inspire visitors to subscribe; the newsletters will bring more people to your site.

4. Use the Internet for research. Check out message boards and chat forum where your target audience congregates, and participate in the discussions. Include your URL in the signature line, which will appear at the bottom of each post. Don’t spam the forums with ads for your site or your product – join in the discussions and become a regular, otherwise you’ll get a reputation as a sleazy marketer.

5. Position yourself as an expert. Whatever your area of business, you can contribute articles offering valuable information to various Internet outlets. Include your website address and link to your newsletter subscription page in your byline, and readers will visit your site to find out more.

All of these are excellent ways to build your opt-in list, and promote your product in a profitable, fun way. The more you do, the more subscribers you’ll have.

But, the truth is people drop off of mailing lists for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with you. They may have only signed up to get a discount or another offer on your site, or they may have decided they aren’t as interested in your services as they thought they were. Maybe they just feel like they’re getting more email than they can handle and want to cut down on the volume.

It’s fine to lose subscribers. After all, you only want people on your list who are interested in your product. People who want to read the informative articles you provide, and find out about the products you offer. Just having names on a list isn’t the point – it’s having quality names of people who are likely to buy from you.

Even the very best email lists get unsubscribe requests all the time. But by monitoring those requests, you can gauge how good a job your doing with your list. If the number is high – say, 10 or 20 percent – you need to take a hard look at the promotional materials you’re sending out and figure out what you may be able to do better. Maybe your articles are informative, but they’re not entertaining enough. Maybe you need to provide a little more variety in your information.

One way that a lot of marketers lose subscribers is by focusing too heavily on sales and product offers and not offering any interesting content. When the people on your list realize that you’re only trying to sell them stuff and not offering them anything in return, they may very well decide to unsubscribe. You have to provide well written, educational material that will enlighten them and reinforce that you’re an expert who’s sharing their knowledge. Offer them subscriber-only web content or discounts, and personally answer every email you get about your list and your site. Your relationship with your mailing list is just that – a relationship. You have to hold up your end by offering them something in return for their continued attention.

As you build up your opt-in mailing list, don’t be discouraged by a small number of unsubscribe requests. It’s part of the job. Keep offering high quality content along with product offers and ads, and know that the readers who are really interested will stick around, and they’ll become loyal customers.

Double Opt-In means that a person must confirm that they want to be on your list, want to receive emails from you, and want whatever it is that you are offering.

It is a great way to protect you from bogus SPAM complaints (if they confirmed their subscription by clicking on the link, they obviously signed up for your list and it can’t be seen as spam), and it also makes for a more responsive list.

I personally will not build any list unless it is double opt-in – and I don’t think you should either. 

By requiring your subscribers to take an additional step to get on your list, you ensure that they really do want to be on your list.  This makes for a more responsive mailing list, and this equals more profits for you.

Some people will argue that by forcing people to take the extra step to sign up to the list, you are losing people that could become customers in the future.  My take on it (and this is shared by many other people I have talked to) is that if they can’t take an extra few minutes to wait for the confirmation email to come and click on that link – is this really someone you want on your list?

They will probably never buy anything from you, and will do nothing except inflate your subscriber number.

I would highly suggest that you use Double Opt-In – you’ll get a more responsive list, you’ll be able to protect yourself against bogus spam complaints, and you can focus your time on people who really want to be on your list.

Using Single Opt-In is just not a good decision, in my opinion.

But, if you have only 100 subscribers, you can still make a pretty good profit.  It just depends on how targeted your subscribers are.  If they are very interested in what you have to offer, and you present it in a way that quickly grabs their attention, you’ll have pretty good success.

Of course, if you have 100 subscribers you should keep doing what you’re doing to get more subscribers.  As your list grows, so will your profits.

What annoys me is when people say there is no way to make any money with your list unless you have several thousand subscribers.  That just isn’t true.

You’ve probably heard this before, but it should be mentioned here.  I would rather have a list 1,000 subscribers interested in what I have to offer and look for my emails than a list of 50,000 who really don’t care what I have to say, but might buy from every few months.

Those 1,000 subscriber who want to hear from me, and care about what I have to say will be much more responsive than those 50,000 who don’t really care about what I’m emailing them about.

If anyone tells you that you need XXX number of subscribers to make any money, they’re probably just trying to sell you something.

From personal experience, I have made some pretty good money from lists with only a few hundred subscribers.  A bigger list does usually mean more money, but you can make decent money from a smaller list.

Don’t be discouraged when your list doesn’t grow as fast as you would like it to.  Keep sending emails to your list – both quality information and ads – and you’ll see the results coming in.

Its called an opt-in list for a reason.  If they don’t enter their name and email address in your web form, or email you and tell you they want to get on your mailing list, they shouldn’t be on there.

If, for example, somebody sends you an email to ask a question, you CANNOT add that person to your mailing list.

If you are on someone else’s mailing list, you cannot add them to your mailing list.  The popular line of thinking, especially among people who are new to Internet Marketing, is that if someone sends you their newsletter (because you opted in to get it), then you can add them to your newsletter.

It doesn’t work that way.  They did not opt-in to receive your newsletter, so you cannot send it to them. DO NOT DO THIS!

The ONLY people that you can add to your mailing list are people that have specifically signed up to receive it.  Period.  Anything else, and you’re taking a huge risk.