Do you have a business website? If so, you need to have a mailing list and a way for your website visitors to subscribe to that list. Let me say it again: YOU NEED A MAILING LIST.

Why do I feel so strongly about this subject? Because I want to see you succeed. I want you to make sales and get prospects to sign up under you. Every good business website has some sort of purpose. Do you want your visitor to buy a candle? Do you want a potential new Tupperware consultant to sign up under you? Do you want him or her to subscribe to your recipe mailer? All of these are examples of things you want a visitor to your site to do. The problem is, most of us arent comfortable doing much of anything the first time we come across a website. After all, the owner of the site is a complete stranger to us. On average, it takes a person being exposed 7 times to a product or service online before they buy. If you have a mailing list, your visitors on that list will be exposed to your business repeatedly, even though they arent actually visiting the site at the time. Material covered in your newsletter or ezine will draw them back and build trust in you as a resource.

Now that we have established why you need a mailing list, lets take a look at how you would go about setting one up, getting people to subscribe to it, what content you will provide to them and how often you will contact them.

You may be tempted at first to just use your local mail client (like Outlook) to send out your mailing list. I strongly recommend staying away from this option unless you never see your mailing list growing above 50 people. If you email to many people at once, your web host may suspect that you are sending out spam email and will shut your email account down, at least temporarily. The other disadvantage is that you cannot automate the process of adding and removing people from your mailing list, and doing this manually can get very time consuming.

I suggest you invest in a solid mailing and autoresponder service. There are a few free options out there, but those will feature ads that will distract your customers from whats important YOUR product or service.

As far as a good autoresponder service goes, you have two different options. You can purchase an autoresponder script, or you can pay a monthly fee to have the service hosted. Here at www.wahmwannabe.com we have opted for a hosted service. Yes, there is a monthly expense as opposed to a one-time fee, but it is worth the time and hassle it saves us. We dont have to upgrade the script or deal with any technical issues that may arise. When it comes to hosted autoresponders, we recommend aweber. Their service is very reasonable, features unlimited autorsponder and newsletter broadcasts and is very easy to use.

Once you have an autoresponder system in place, think about how people will be able to subscribe to your newsletter. The first thing you should do is add a signup form to every page of your website. If you use aweber, you can use their web form generator feature to create the form. The most effective places to add the form on your website are in the middle of the content or in the upper left-hand corner of your pages. For a full review, please go to http://www.wahmwannabe.com/newsletter/newsletter-subscription.htm

Next, I would suggest you create a separate page that talks about your newsletter. What are you going to send your subscribers each week or month? Will it be a product recommendation, some tips on how to use a particular product, articles of interest to your subscribers? Give them a reason why they should subscribe to your newsletter. As an additional incentive, you may even want to consider offering a freebie. This can be a special report you wrote, an ebook, etc.

For www.wahmwannabe.com, we created a motivational screensaver as a little freebie to our subscribers. Take a look at (insert link to newsletter signup page) to get a feel for an example newsletter signup page.

In addition to your site, add the link to your newsletter signup page to the signature of your email, to your signature line when you participate in message boards and in the byline of the articles you write. Soon you will start to see people signing up for your newsletter.

You want to stay in contact with your list by email at least once per month, preferably once per week. You dont need to create an elaborate ezine each time. All you need is to write up a little note from you with an interesting tidbit of information and a link back to your website where they can find additional information. For example, if you are selling candles, email them a tip on effective candle burning, some safety tips, or even announce the newest scents available. If you read something interesting that relates to you business, mention it in your newsletter.

With a mailing list, you will have a way to stay in contact with your visitors and potential customers and can keep your product or service in front of them. And sooner or later, they may just buy. Good luck!