Business owners today need to have an active list of subscribers. This could be a newsletter list, a buyer’s list or a general interest list that is related to your business in some way.
Creating a list isn’t that difficult to do. All you need is a couple of basic tools and you are ready to go. Let’s take a look at the basics:

Autoresponder – there are several companies that offer an autoresponder service. The most popular ones are Aweber, Get Response, iContact and Mail Chimp. It is recommended that you go with a paid service otherwise you may find that the company sends out promotions along with your emails. This can really tick off your subscribers plus it doesn’t look professional. You can get started with a service for a basic account for under $20 a month, some even have low cost monthly trials.

Actually that is all you need to start list building unless you don’t have a website or blog set up! Using a reliable service will ensure that your emails get delivered and you now have one central portal where you can manage your emails from.

Once inside your account you will find that creating a list and an opt-in form is relatively easy. This will differ depending upon which service you chose. Just follow their instructions and if you run into any difficulty use their help or support function.

Your next step is to place your form onto your website. Again this is easy to do if you have a wordpress site. You simply take the code and place it inside a text widget in your side bar. You can also have your form displayed at the end of each of your blog posts as well. This just makes it so easy for people to sign up, especially if they just enjoyed your post. All they have to do is read, enjoy and give you their email address.

A good way to entice people to part with their email address is to give them something in return. This could a free book or report, access to a private video or a free coupon or even a 20 minute consultation.
This really covers the very basics of getting started with building a list. Getting an opt-in form on your website is a great start. From there, as you learn more about list building, you can improve your techniques.