Before you begin your campaign...

Know your audience.

Who are they? What are their interests? What other sites are they visiting?

The best producing emails are going to be those in your niche. They are the readers you should be most familiar with, who share common likes, needs and wants. As such, you have the best opportunity of having these names join your community.

The question is where do you find them?

Start by researching your niche. I look at competitors and what online advertising they are doing.

Follow their lead... if they are successful online the odds are the source of their leads is where you want to be. (at least in the beginning) I start with Alexa.com & Google. Research the niche, research the competition and you'll find numerous threads to follow.

You can also hire "Competitive Intelligence" companies that will research individual sites and give you a great breakdown for the source of their readers, buyers, or and/or leads.

We could talk about this for weeks, and we will later on... but let's down to bass tacks. You want "opt in " names? Here are 12 tips to building your list... starting tomorrow