Trying to sell your product or service to a thousand people chosen at random is a much more difficult thing to do than to make a sale to one hundred people who already have interest in what you have to offer this is something which should be common sense, but you'd be surprised how many marketers are unaware of this rule.

Finding leads is only the first step; if you want to turn a lead into a paying customer, you need one thing: follow up. Potential customers must be reminded of your company and what it can do for them before they will consider making a purchase. What you need to do is build and maintain a relationship with your leads as well as existing clients and customers.

It could take an awful lot of your time to do this if you are trying to contact these leads and customers on an individual basis. There are of course better ways to keep track of and in touch with these people. These are called lead management systems.

Microsoft Outlook can help you to do this. Already present on most Windows-based PC's, someone using outlook can import leads from an Excel spreadsheet or a comma separated values document (.csv) to their contacts on Outlook and form there, to work with them. With these leads incorporated as contacts, mass emails can easily be sent out.

Outlook is simple to use, but is not perfect. If you don't have your own private server, then the information which you have imported into Outlook can only be of use to you on that computer you have done this on. If you were on the road, for instance, you would be unable to access this information. Outlook also can not send out mailings on a timer, as it were.

However, Outlook can be ideal for the novice web based marketer with a small list of leads to work with.

Better than this is an autoresponder program or service. Free autoresponders are available; these have one big fault, however the recipient will see ads along with your email from other companies. You would do better to avoid these advertising supported autoresponders.

A lot of autoresponder services are inexpensive, happily enough. It's far more professional looking too have your branded email blasts not bearing someone else's brand, so the small expense is well worth it.

You can create several different lists with an autoresponder. Once you have set up the lists you desire, you can make an opt-in form for your website, People who sign up to receive information from you will have their email addresses added to the autoresponder's list. You can then send out messages automatically to all of these people using the autoresponder.

You may also want to consider a contact management system which is web based (so you can use it on the road too). These services offer the best features of both of the other options; contact information and notes can be put in corresponding with each lead on thee list and messages can be written and set to send at a given date and time.

None of these three systems is the perfect fit for every business. However, one of these options is sure to suit the particular needs of your business to a t.