Go to any internet marketing forum and ask the following question: If you had to start your internet company all over again but were allowed to incorporate just one item from your previous business what would it be? Some marketers may say a certain traffic generating technique or advertising method which has made them a lot of money. Others may pick a specific product or service. But you can bet that the overwhelming majority will say if they had to decide on just one thing, it would be their opt in email in list.

According to Direct Marketing Association, revenue generated last year from email marketing was projected at 18.5 billion dollars and that was just in the United States alone. The advent of filters due to spam email makes it tougher to contact your target audience but having your own email marketing system remains essential to online success.

But you can take it to the bank, that anytime a good thing comes along, some people will do everything in their power to shortcut or game the system and ruin it for everyone else. They will then try to convince many people who are just starting out to do the same. If you want to build your email list the wrong way then.

1. Buy the List

There are many distributors online who will sell you an email list. This is a very ineffective way of marketing since these lists are usually to general in nature. You make a list mailing purchase of 10,000 names and addresses but the number of people who are going to be interested in your product or service will be minuscule. Another problem is that many people on the list never asked to be sent a solicitation, which brings up the question of how did the distributors compile the list? Unsolicited emails are a good way to get accused of spamming.

2. Email Harvesting

A few years back many a website offered software to gather emails from online profiles, forum postings, mailing lists and various other places. The software would look for anything that appeared to be an email address and then compile it into a list. While not as prominent as before, this software still exists. You maybe able to find a legitimate email distributor to buy a list from but email harvesting is spamming; pure and simple. This method will get you in a lot of trouble.

3. Selling, Selling Everywhere

You post to forums and message boards on a regular basis however no one is signing up. A big reason for this is you may not be contributing any useful dialogue to the discussion. Instead you bombard them with one sales pitch after another. It does not matter if your webpage has an opt in form at the bottom; all visitors see is a huge "by my product" sign. When you visit forums offer up quality information that adds to the topic. Let the other forum members get to know you before you start pitching your products. Even then a better strategy is to provide something of quality to them for free as long as they opt in to your list. Never underestimate the power of the freebie.

Opt in email marketing is arguably still the best way to generate a steady stream of customers and revenue. Yes it's been made tougher but that does not mean the system has been rendered useless. Just stay away from the shady practices or quick fixes and you will have no trouble building a responsive opt in email list of people who cannot wait to hear from you.