First, let's look at the flow of a sale without the squeeze page. You have a website established and you start marketing. You do a very good job of marketing and people start coming to your website. All of your marketing drives people directly to your homepage. Some people buy - but most people do not. You understand that sales is a numbers game and the volume of sales is a direct result of the volume and effectiveness of your marketing, so you intensify your marketing efforts. More marketing equals more sales. Now you are happy because the site actually starts to make a profit. So you sink MORE money and effort into marketing, hoping to live the GOOD life.

But what about all of those people who come to your website and DON'T buy anything? They come, they look around, they might even like your products, but not enough to buy anything - at least not right away. So they leave… forever. Oh, they might even intend to come back at a later date, but as soon as they go, your website disappears… back into the steaming cauldron of millions of websites they might visit on the world wide web. (It ain't called WORLD WIDE for nothin'!) But who are these people? Where did they go? And why did they leave without buying something? This large group of people who visit but do not buy is a huge asset for you, just waiting to be tapped. It's like having an automatic ATM full of money, but you don't know the PIN - the secret code - to access it. The simple fact is that most sales are made with follow-up marketing, not from the initial contact. But how can you follow-up if you don't know who they are?

You can access this money machine with the use of a squeeze page, so called because they must squeeze through this page to get to your website, and as they do, you squeeze their email address out of them.

It's a simple concept, really. In order for them to access your website, they must first give you their email address. You can then use their email address to do follow-up marketing. But here's the key: your squeeze page cannot be a page with just your business name and an email list opt-in form. NOBODY would give you their email address that way. Would you, in that situation?

Your squeeze page must have copy - essentially a sales letter - that is so exciting that it virtually COMPELS them to leave their email so that they can learn more about your products! It must leave them curious, wanting to know more!

This can be done in many ways, but here' just one tactic. Let's say you're selling an online training course that will teach them how to increase traffic using Google adwords. You explain some BENEFITS (not features) of using your product. You tell them what your product will do for them (but not how it works).

Here's an example of what your squeeze page copy might look like:

Have you been trying, without result, to get your website listed higher on search engine results pages? Introducing TrafficPro!

* Get your website showing on the first page of Google and Yahoo - every time!

* Increase your sales by increasing your traffic!

* Bring PRE-QUALIFIED traffic to your website for just pennies per hit. In fact, the more traffic that comes to your site, the LESS you pay per hit!

* Use TrafficPro to ANNIHILATE the competition - you will virtually DOMINATE your niche.

* Start bringing increased traffic to your website within MINUTES of implementing these tried and true but little known techniques!

To get started immediately on your road to success with massive traffic, just enter your name and email address for more information.

And that would be your squeeze page. See how it leaves them wanting more? Does it leave YOU wanting to know more about TrafficPro? (Sorry, I don't have a product called TrafficPro. This was just an example.)

If you leave them curious, or wanting more, people will eagerly leave their email address in order to find out more about your product. Of course, you must give them the usual assurances that you will never give or sell their email address, etc, and that they can opt out of your list at any time.

After they leave their email address, they gain access to your site. They might buy your product, they might not. But if they don't (and even if they do), this is where the REAL sales process starts. Add their name to your email list and start sending them REGULAR and INFORMATIVE emails. You should probably send at least one email every two weeks, or maybe one per week. If you send them daily emails, they will get tired of you and opt-out.

If your emails are informative, not just sales hype, your prospects will begin to look to you as being and expert in your field. They will begin to feel like they have a RELATIONSHIP with you. And it is out of this relationship that many, multiple and on-going sales can take place. If they've never bought anything from you, use this to sell them your first product. If they have already purchased something, use this developing relationship to up-sell them another (hopefully more expensive) product.

You don't have to sit down to write and send out all of these emails to all of your new prospects every time. The process can be totally automated using Aweber or some other similar autoresponder service. You just write the email series once, and then it is automatically sent to your entire list every week, or every two weeks, or whatever you decide.

Yes, you could lose a few initial sales, because some people will not give you their email under any circumstance, if they don't know you. But the potential for increased back-end sales through back-end relationship marketing with your email list far outweighs the few sales you might lose initially.

Using a squeeze page to build an email list can turn prospects into customers, and one-time customers into lifetime customers. These back-end sales probably will not happen immediately, but in the long haul, you can easily quadruple your overall sales using this one simple technique.