There are services out there that will mail your ad for you from their servers and they will even provide addresses, but these are not free and there is still some danger. Generally, bulk email services will recommend that you do not include a URL for your offer in your message, they encourage you to provide a free email address in your message where people can write for more information. This, they say, insures that your ISP and your program or offer are safe: if someone complains most that can happen is your free email account gets shut down.

BUT I THOUGHT. Remember, when gurus tell you that email advertising is most effective form of advertising online, they are talking about sending mail to your own opt-in list, that means to people who have specifically requested your INFORMATION. No one is signing up just to get ads, unless it is a safelist, and you don't get those addresses. The idea of email advertising is not to inundate world with your advertisement, no one wants that and if you think about it, you don't want to be inundated with other people's ads either. You need to take time to build your OWN opt-in list.

If you are looking for a shortcut to having your own email list by buying one, or if you are mailing to every address you can find everyday (or even every week), you are headed for serious trouble. You could lose your site, you could take down whatever it is you are promoting with you, AND you are contributing to a problem that is totally out of control.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? The truth is, beginners should forget about mass email advertising to begin with. Practice ad writing by using a few free safelists.

Create an autoresponder series that people can opt-in for. Be sure your topic is of interest to a wide group of people, you have an informative title and also, that you provide useful information. This is not as hard as it sounds, but it does take some effort. Presumably you are selling a wonderful product that answers an important need for general population. Your title should project single best benefit that your product offers and message series should describe problem and provide solution via your offer. It doesn't have to be 10 messages (although at least seven is recommended); you could talk about one specific angle or benefit of your product in each message with an overall recap for last.

Also, don't forget that there are lots of other ways to advertise online. I have heard many people complain that FFA's and free classified ads do not work, but I know that they do. I recommend an FFA page that has sent me 60 visitors within 2 hours that my link was visible! The people who say these advertising forms are worthless are generally those who do not have ad writing skills necessary to make surfers click or they are using automated submission services which allow your ad to slip off page without ever being seen by human eyes. If you can't get people to click on your free ads, odds are people will not click through your email ads either. Do not pay for a mass emailing service before you are confident of your ad writing skills.

Once you have captured your prospects email address you can run them through your autoresponder which will have pre-written messages that you have already created. Create at least 7-14 messages to ensure a better response.

What's great about autoresponders is that you only have to set it up once. Once you are done your autoresponder works for you 24/7 whether you are online or not. It is an automated sales machine!

If you are not capturing email addresses and using a follow up system on your website, you are losing money! Autoresponders are an important piece to your sales puzzle.