If you're one of those business owners who hasn't yet started to use email marketing, then it is time for you to get started. You're literally throwing away hundreds of dollars in revenue that you could easily recoup by setting up a mailing list, rather than selling directly.

How can you do this? You can start by purchasing an autoresponder service account. While you have many different options from which you can select, I would personally urge you to go with either Aweber or GetResponse, since they are both whitelisted by most email clients.

Once you finish setting up your autoresponder service, you will need to figure out how you will use it. In most situations, Internet marketers add a series of emails to their autoresponders. This allows people to sign up for the list and then immediately start to receive emails, regardless of what the list owner is doing at the time.

After you finish writing and loading the entire series into your autoresponder, you will want to then figure out how to setup a "squeeze page" for your site. You may want to spend some time on Aweber or GetResponse (whichever you selected) to figure out how they handle opt-in forms. In general, they will generate some code for you - which you can then insert into your squeeze page.

If you're not familiar with squeeze pages, they're basically pages that consist of several bullet points that contain "benefits." These points lead up to an opt-in form, which allow visitors to join your mailing list automatically by adding their first names and email addresses. Whatever you do, keep your squeeze page small and use points that are compelling.

After you finish creating your squeeze page, you will want to use the full might of your marketing tools to drive traffic to it. Remember, you don't need to make sales initially. All you have to do is get people to sign up. From there, you'll want to entertain them, get them to trust you; and then attempt to sell them something.

In a matter of weeks, your list should start to fill up. You can either capitalize on everything you've done up to this point; or you can squander all your efforts. My suggestion is to think carefully before you send out any product offer, but to send them out reasonably often.

Additionally, try to keep in mind that you do not need to sell all of your own products. There are vast pools of high-quality products just waiting for you to market them. Additionally, there are big launches every few months. Try to pick out a few of these products and market them through your list.

And there you have it: a basic guide for email marketing. All you have to do is setup your list, create an email series, figure out the best way to pitch products through that email series; and then start driving traffic to your squeeze page.