What is most important part of your online business? Many people would say: "my website". And that’s understandable – it’s most visible part of an internet business.

But real power in your online business is email. It’s ability to reach your database of contacts at click of a button. The efficiency of your email pipeline will determine how much money your business makes.

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

In fact, we’re not talking about one list, but several. Here are lists that I maintain – they’re all people who at 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 first contact. Statistics show that most people will need to see your message 7 times before they make a purchase. So if you're not collecting 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's your list of previous customers. These people are predisposed to buying from you. In fact, some businesses make 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) an autoresponder account or an autoresponder script and (2) a way of capturing your visitor's email address.

(1) Autoresponder Accounts

An autoresponder account gives you ability to manage a list without installing software - it's all done on a remote website. Most autoresponder accounts will give you: