The Importance of Email Lists

Having a mailing list is important for every online business. There are various marketing gurus that have written texts on how to create these lists. Often however, the simple act of offering it to your visitors will generate subscribers. Offering incentives is a good way to get people to give your their email address. People visiting your website are the best prospects you can get, it doesn't get any more targeted than this!
Let's face it, unless you're lucky enough to have an amazing network effect promoting your business from word of mouth like for example Google, eBay and Paypal have enjoyed, you most likely have to spend money on advertising. It costs alot to bring prospects to your website and often, they don't buy right away. A good chunk of these will forget your website, never to return. That is unless you captured their email address!
So if you don't already have an email list in place, create one! There are alot of free softwares out there that will do the trick. Two I like particularly are PHPlist (if you have your own hosting account) and NotifyList (if you don't have a hosting account).
All this talk about having an email list make me realize I should perhaps create one for my blog :/ Hey, do what I preach, not what I do (or don't do) :)