What is the most important part of your online business?Many people would say: "my website". And that?sunderstandable ? it?s the most visible part of an internetbusiness.

But the real power in your online business is email. It?sthe ability to reach your database of contacts at the clickof a button. The efficiency of your email pipeline willdetermine how much money your business makes.

Your website is just a way of building your mailing list -by collecting the email addresses of your visitors.

In factt, we?re not talking about one list, but several.Here are the lists that I maintain ? they?re all people whoat one time or another have visited my websites:

- people who have bought my products- people who have signed up to receive my articles- people who have joined my affiliate program- people who have signed up for my email course- people who have joined my newsletter

So why are these lists so important?

Because most of your visitors won`t buy on the firstcontact. Statistics show that most people will need to seeyour message 7 times before they make a purchase. So ifyou`re not collecting the email addresses of your visitors,you are losing out on a lot of sales.

But there is one list in particular that is like gold. It`syour list of previous customers. These people arepredisposed to buying from you. In fact, some businessesmake 80% of their sales from previous customers.

All well and good - but what do I do with these lists?

Here are some ideas:

- announce your latest product to your customer list

- announce your latest product to your affiliates list

- send your latest article to your articles list

- announce your latest product in your newsletter

- publish your latest article in your newsletter

- announce `related` products to your customer list

- send your latest article to your affiliates list so they can use

it to promote your products

For each list that you manage you will need (1) anautoresponder account or an autoresponder script and (2) away of capturing your visitor`s email address.

(1) Autoresponder Accounts

An autoresponder account gives you the ability to manage alist without installing software - it`s all done on aremote website. Most autoresponder accounts will give you:

- an email address for subscribing- an HTML form for subscribing- seven or more follow-up messages- a confirmation email to you every time someone joins- the ability to broadcast messages to your list- the ability to personalize your messages- database of your prospects- online stats

Here are some sites that offer autoresponder accounts:

http://www.aweber.com/

http://www.getresponse.com/

http://www.responders.com/

http://www.proautoresponder.com/

http://www.www.roibot.com/

http://www.infogeneratorpro.com/

http://www.replypro.net/

http://www.auto-responder.co.uk/

Now, autoresponder accounts cost between $17 and $20 permonth. And with most autoresponder services you can onlymanage one list per account. So if you are managing 5lists, that quickly adds up to a hefty monthly bill.

But there are a few services that allow you to managemultiple lists with one account. Here are some of them:

http://www.rapidreply.net/http://www.ezmailpro.com/http://www.autorespond-it.com/http://www.1automationwiz.com/http://www.royal-responder.com/

(2) Capturing Email Addresses

The most popular way to get new subscribers to your list isa `subscribe form` that pops up when your website loads. Iget 25 to 30 new subscribers a day using this technique.The HTML code for the subscribe form usually comes withyour autoresponder account.

Another way to invite visitors to join your list is an`alert box`. An alert box is a small gray dialogue box thatpops up when someone visits your website. It usually sayssomething like: "Please subscribe to my Newsletter. 5 FreeeBooks when you join". It`s impossible to ignore an alertbox - you have to either close it or click OK to continue.

Alert boxes have two advantages over subscribe forms.Firstly, there`s no form to fill in, so it`s much easierfor people to join your list. People who have switched froma subscribe form to an alert box report 3 to 5 times asmany subscribers.

Secondly, alert boxes capture only "real" email addresses -the email address from the visitor`s client browser. Youend up with very few Hotmail and Yahoo addresses, whichmeans you`ll have a much more responsive list. For moreinformation about alert boxes, visit:http://www.optinlightning.com/

So to sum up, use your website to build several optinmailing lists and you`ll have a private audience of peopleyou can market to over and over again - it`s the key torunning a successful online business.