One of the excuses we hear most often from struggling online marketers is that they don’t make more sales because they don’t have a list. We even hear that excuse from marketers who have been online three, or even five years.

My question to them is always, “What are you waiting for?” “Why not start a massive list-building effort today?”

When I look at how I built my database, I used only a few primary methods. Here are the most effective ones that I used:

1) On many of my content websites, in many niches, I simply have an opt-in form in a prominent location on practically every page. That opt-in form is usually in the upper right corner of the page. I typically offer the potential subscribers a gift as an enticement to join my list — perhaps a PDF special report or an audio recording.

I also assure the potential subscriber that I will protect their data and only send them appropriate email. I also tell them that there is a handy one-click link in every email that I send that makes it super easy for them to remove themselves from my list if they ever get tired of my communications.

This has worked beautifully for me for more than a dozen year, and steadily grows my lists.

2) I have numerous affiliate programs. Many of these affiliate programs sell inexpensive products and pay the affiliates 100% commission on the front end product. The real purpose of those affiliate programs is to build a list of proven buyers interested in a specific topic. The commissions incentivize others to go out and send me traffic AND build my lists.

I most often use a script called Rapid Action Profits, which allows me to pay affiliate instantly, depositing the payments directly into their PayPal accounts. This is so powerful because affiliates often need the funds TODAY, and don’t want to wait 30 – 60 days for their commissions. When they can sell one of my inexpensive products, that are almost impulse buys for their customers, and get those funds instantly, they trip over themselves sending me customer… and building my lists.

3) I often participate in quality list-building giveaways. In these events, numerous marketers ban together to drive traffic to a centralize website where gifts from each of the marketers are listed. In order to download a specific gift, the website visitor must typically visit the site of the marketer offering the gift and join his list.

If you offer truly useful gifts, thousands of new subscribers can sometimes be gained from just one of these free giveaways. I usually offer PDF ebooks (transcripts from interviews that I conduct), MP3’s or inexpensive but useful software.

I often announce free giveaways that are looking for contributors on my blog, and to my Twitter followers.

4) Software that displays your subscribe box on other’s site, and automatically builds your list for you. There is software that allows you to participate in a cooperative effort, where partners display the boxes on each others’ webpages. This is a good way to share the wealth since your website visitors are joining others’ lists anyway. You may as well send your traffic to someone who is reciprocating.

There is also newer software that allows you to display your subscribe box superimposed on affiliate websites, social networking sites, etc. You still tell your visitors to go to sites such as YouTube, Clickbank, Amazon or Ebay, but the software shows them a subscribe box and asks them to join your list BEFORE doing anything else. This is very powerful, and is largely hands free.

For example, I can mention affiliate sites, or perhaps my profile page on one of the social networking sites, and build a list in the process of just spreading the word.

With so many easy ways to grow your list, there really is no excuse for anyone who’s been online for more than a few months not to be aggressively building a list. You do need that list to inexpensively spread the word about your business.

Now that you see how REALLY simple and easy it is, get started building your list today!

Signing up for an MLM Opportunity can be exciting. The mind swirls with the idea of a large residual income and the ability to do as you please. Once this initial fantasy subsides you have some very important matters to consider.

Since the MLM business is built upon the idea of duplication, you must think about how you will recruit new distributors. A smart MLmer will also develop a means to sell the MLM company’s primary product. Even though many huge organizations have been built on product sales alone, most MLMer’s overlook this marketing method.

Let’s look at a simple example. Would you rather have 1000 distributors purchasing $100 a month in product or 300 distributors selling $700 a month in product? Since MLM commissions are based on volume and the 1st group’s volume is $100,000 and the 2nd group’s volume is $210,000, who made the most money? It is obvious that the 2nd group was more profitable. Don’t neglect product sales systems if you can find them.

What you want to find starting out in the MLM business is a duplicatable system anyone can use. This may take the form of lead capture pages, autoresponders and the messages preloaded in them, and of course, a reliable source of good leads. Hopefully you can get all these “tools” from your upline, since company created material is not the best available for you. Consider using a funded proposal system where you make upfront money and backend your primary MLM Business.

It is nothing new to use an MLM System to promote your business. Most of the larger companies and uplines have these available. How you use the system is what will make YOU stand apart from the crowd of the 1000′s of moneymaking offers available.

Let me give you an example of what one MLMer does to make over $1,000,000 a year. He uses the systems available; but he calls them and mails a postcard to his prospects. He only calls when he knows the prospect won’t be home and just leaves a generic message on their answering service introducing himself and his company. He signs up more people than you can imagine! He stands out because he uses 3 different ways to contact prospects: the Internet (using a lead capture page along with many followup autoresponder messages), the telephone and snail mail.

Since most people are ONLY using the Internet these days, why not consider standing out from the crowd yourself. Also use postcards and the telephone answering machine method. Teach your downline to do what you do, and you will see your downline grow tremendously.

Duplicatable systems can be rather “cold” and impersonal. It is adding the personal touch to any system which will make you a success.