By Michael Mason

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.