Online marketing may have developed a sudden surge these past few years, but many in the know, have felt its rise even from before then. As more internet based businesses are started, the need to develop new marketing skills and knowledge is essential. More and more marketing strategies are being discovered and developed to cope with the changing face of the online business world.

While there are companies that are very eager to help your site and build a list for a fee, there also many ways that you can spread the word about your business in a more economical way. One of these is opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.

Opt-in marketing requires the permission of a willing person to subscribe to your marketing messages, messages that take form in newsletters, catalogs and promotional mailings via e-mail. The more opt-in marketing mail is sent, the more chances there are to get more sales. To do this, you must build a list of all those who want to subscribe to your opt-in marketing list.

You will want a list of targeted prospects. They are targeted because they have already shown an interest in what you have to offer. These are the people who have liked what they have seen on your squeeze page and have decided they want to see more.

Many people think that building a list is hard work and takes a lot of time. This is not so. It takes a bit of patience and some strategies. Here are five of them.

1. A free report, book, or software in exchange for their details. I'm going to give you a report you can give away as much as you want. You can get it by reading this article on the blog and using the link you see at the end. If this is the blog right now, keep going, if not, keep going, this will link to the blog.

2. An attractive squeeze page with a strong headline that converts well. Design your own or use a template you can find on the web. Find my "Blogroll" on the blog and click "Join Mailing List" to see my squeeze page. Join the mailing list and after a few weeks I will give you some squeeze page templates.

3. An iron clad guarantee of privacy. You're never going to sell or share their details. You hate spam. Make sure your visitors know it. This is the first step in building a relationship of trust. Deliver what you promise, always.

4. The ability to easily unsubscribe. A modern autoresponder will take care of this for you by inserting an unsubscribe link into every email you send. In fact, it's the law now as well.

5. Drive traffic to that squeeze page, and lots of it. The report I'm handing over today will give you some traffic tips, no strings attached.

These 5 strategies will get people onto your list. How to interact with your subscribers needs to be tackled another day.

Go to the blog to download your free report.