If you don`t know it yet, you will probably learn over time, that email marketing is probably THE most effective way of marketing online. That is, IF you do it right way.

Here`s a couple of hints and tips that have worked for me:

I have a habit of signing up for safelists that offer free pro memberships to first so-so many members. I find that smaller safelists are most responsive. Once they reach around 1000 members or so, actual opening and reading of mails seems to die off.

Think about what would make YOU open an email. What would grab YOUR attention? Try to make subject both interesting and captivating, with just a touch of urgency.

Make sure your subject line isn`t misleading. That`s such a huge turn-off to most marketers. They open a mail with a great subject line, and find that it bears absolutely NO relevance to mail itself. Not only will they most likely delete mail right away, but they`ll probably remember who sent it, and never open mails from that person again.

Remember, if you`re going to use safelists for your email marketing, get a seperate email address for all mail you`ll get from other members.

I probably have about 10 so-called "junkmail" accounts, where I get all my safelist mails. I go through my mails every day, and yes, I do delete most of them right away.

Sometimes though, something catches my eye, and I take a closer look. I find it`s a GREAT way of keeping on top of what`s happening in world of internet marketing.

Now, if safelists are just NOT your cup of tea, you need to work out how to create a warm market, for your own personal use.

The best way of doing this, is by building your very own contact list. Whether you want to publish an ezine, or just create a mailing list is up to you, but make sure you do it properly. I personally find my contacts through chat. I go to as many chatrooms as I can find, and make sure my profile is up-to-date and lets people know that I`m an online marketer.

That way, if people are interested in learning more about me, they`ve at least got a starting point, and from there, it`s pretty easy to get them to allow you to add them to your mailing list.

The PR Rainmaker knows: Before you can attract a reporter, you must have something to report. It doesn’t get any more basic than that. And yet so many executives, professionals and entrepreneurs fail to comprehend this simple fact.

Instead, they have their flack call reporter and say something along these lines: “We have a great company and a terrific CEO. Are you interested in doing a story on us?”

Reporters hear this sort of lame pitch day in, day out. And you know what? It rarely works.

When it does work, it is because journalist is very inexperienced or was already interested in your company before you called.