Maybe you've heard the expression before. If you've been working online or trying to start an online business for some time, then you most likely have: the money is in the list.

For those who don't know, that saying is referring to a mailing list, specifically a list of email addresses of people who have agreed to receive messages from you.

Well, the saying couldn't be more true. Having a mailing list enables you to keep in touch with people who are in your niche and therefore have similar interests and might just be interested in purchasing something having to do with that niche.

And that means that you have a better than ever opportunity to make a sale.

You see, the average sales letter page converts at around 1% for new visitors. Some good marketers are able to increase their numbers, but 1% is the average. All things considered, that's pretty low.

But if you have a list that you treat right with quality content about your niche and by building a strong relationship, then you can increase your sales conversions considerably by warming your prospects up to your offer before they even see it.

As necessary as the long sales letter is on your website, most internet users don't really want to read through the whole thing in one shot. But if you spread the sales pitch out over time into shorter bits, then they'll usually be more receptive, and they can get to know you and your products better before even getting to the sales letter.

Now don't let that make you think that you only need to send a sales pitch to your list over and over. That's a recipe for failure. I've seen it many times.

No, as I said already, you want to treat your list right. That means building trust by providing them with content that matters, such as articles and videos that they might be interested in. And it means treating them like you would any of your friends in your address book. You wouldn't email a blatant sales pitch to your friends every day, would you? And you wouldn't ignore them if they had a question for you, would you?

There are a number of specific things that you can do to warm your list up to your offer, but that's a whole course on it's own, and there isn't time for it now. Suffice it to say that you need to stay in touch and treat them well.

A lot of marketers will tell you that the bigger the list the better, and that's true to some degree, but really it's quality over quantity. You want subscribers who want to hear from you, and the only way to do that is to offer them good stuff in return.

So how do you get a list? Well, there are a few ways. Let's start at the beginning. First you'll want to put together something that you can offer in exchange for their name and email address. Something like a free report, or a free video, or an email series. Be sure that you're offering something of quality in return. Something that your visitors will be willing to give away their email address for. Something that specifically addresses a need in your market.

Then take care of some of the technical stuff. Sign up with an email management site with an autoresponder, such as Aweber, GetResponse, or iContact (there are many, so do your research). Use their tutorials to set up an opt in form on your website. I recommend putting one on every page that you can, and also setting up one page on your site specifically dedicated to getting opt ins. A squeeze page, as it were.

Then start driving traffic to your squeeze page. There are a number of ways to do this, and there isn't time to go into that now either. But keep in mind that you should be testing every part of your opt in offer, including different text and sizes and colors and so on, so you can maximize the number of subscribers you'll get. The average opt in rate for a squeeze page is in the 15% - 25% range, but some marketers can get it up over 50%. You can, too if you do the proper testing.

But it isn't just new subscribers that you should be concerned with. Any past customers that you have should also be considered part of your list. They've purchased from you before, and that makes them much more likely to purchase from you again than a new customer is. Cultivate that relationship. It's being handed to you on a plate.

By the way, I feel the need to point out that it is an extraordinarily bad idea to buy email lists. You'll probably see many offers from people trying to sell you on this idea. Ignore them. You're only going to get a list of email addresses that are either no longer active, or belong to people who are going to complain, and then you'll be charged with spam, and most likely banned.

You can pay for things like co-registration or CPM mailings. Those are different. But you don't want to buy a list of email addresses, unless you want to fail miserably, which you don't, I'm pretty sure.

OK, so hopefully you understand that you need a list. Now get to work on building one. And then get to work building that all important relationship with them. And then work on getting the sale.