Whether you're publishing an ezine, sending an ecourse, posting to a blog, or building an email list of clients and customers in another format, there are a few things you need to know to make sure that you're complying with the legal aspects of sending email as well as for making your list-building efforts that much more effective.

Simply put, opt^in email (also called 'permission-based') is email sent to people who have given you permission to contact them via email. For more detail go to: www.autoresponder-money.com. So if someone hasn't directly requested information from you, they should not be on you're opt^in list.

Depending on the email list service you're using in your business, you may have a choice between single or double opt^in email. With single opt^in, someone gives you their email address once and they are added to your list. With double opt^in (also know as confirmation opt^in), someone gives you their email address, to which they then receive an automated response from your list service asking them to click a specific URL to confirm that they do in fact want to be added to your list. Only once they click that link are they then added to your list.

So, which should you use? It depends, but for your main email list, I want to encourage you to use the double opt^in process. It means that you will lose a certain percentage of those people who signed up for your list because they then don't confirm their subscription, for more detail go to: www.autoresponders-unlimited.com. But it protects you from being labeled as a spammer - something you want to avoid at all costs.

Wherever you give people the option to sign up for your list, make certain your privacy policy is clearly stated. Something like "We will never share your email address, period" should be fine.

In every email you send to your list, have a clear way for your reader to unsubscribe if they desire. Usually this is in the form of an unsubscribe URL at the bottom of the email. When someone clicks on the link, they should be taken to a page where they can remove their email address from your list. Just make sure your unsubscribe function works!

In the beginning, you'll only be setting up one list, most likely for your ezine. But at some point you'll want to have multiple lists, for different products or programs you offer, to more easily connect with specific people on your list.

For example, I have a list for my ezine subscribers, one for the members of my Coaching Cafe, one for each of my programs, and several others that perform various functions for me.

When you're choosing an email list service provider, this is something you want to keep in mind - the ability to create and manage multiple lists.

Being able to compose your email messages ahead of time and then queue them to be delivered on the date and/or interval of your choosing is another great benefit to using an email list service provider.