Building Your Own Mailing List by Anne-Marie Ronsen  There are many possibilities and opportunities to expand your list if you are willing to put in the time and effort. Once you have a solid list, you are positioned to sell your product or service more efficiently on the Web or off the Web. In this chapter we’ll look at some more ways of building your subscriber lists. Many people decide to build their mailing list by buying a mailing lists or subscriber lists. There are many places you can rent or buy mailing lists. Generally however, these lists do not work as well as collecting leads on your own. Sometimes buying a list causes problems. For example, many subscribers on these lists are people that didn’t want their personal information sold, so they may end up resenting you for contacting them, and even report you for Spam. While you can use these lists and they might work, you have to consider whether the price is worth it as they are very expensive. If you are short on time and have some free capital to spare, you might start with a rented or bought list and then work on building your own subscriber list. You can’t rely on others to build your mailing list for you. If you want to succeed you must do everything possible to create your own success. Building your own list is the best way to earn the trust and loyalty of subscribers and to ensure your personal success and satisfaction. While you are building your subscriber list using the tools we talked about in the first chapter, you can also use the information you gather to start building your own mailing list. Some new business owners are afraid to ask their customers for personal information to include on their list. But for many, a mailing list can make or break a business. A mailing list is a must have if you want to create large-scale sales and realize significant profits on the Web. Want to know why a mailing list is important? Here’s why. Typically the average customer will visit a website seven or more times before they buy something. As long as you give your customers a reason to revisit your site, they will. That is why you need a mailing list You can mail a newsletter to your list to encourage your customers to visit your site and look at recent additions or updates. There are many statistics confirming that customers repeatedly buy from email advertisements, so don’t think you don’t need a mailing list. You do. And you need a good one at that.