Your mailing list is your market but building up a good list takes time, something which is a problem for new internet businesses that need to start selling fast to generate an income.  You can buy mailing lists, but these rarely work  many of the email addresses may not be valid and out of the thousand names on these lists, a large majority will be those who have no interest in what you are selling.  There are no shortcuts to building your own list but there are a few list building techniques like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that can speed the process for you.

Optimizing your website means that it come high in search results and thus increases the amount of visitors you will have.  Getting traffic does not mean business but if your landing page has an attractive offer for those who leave their email addresses with you, you will be adding to you list the addresses of those who are interested in your products.  What you offer is very important and the most common of these freebies is an ebook that will be of interest to your target market – those who leave their email addresses are those who are interested in what you are selling.  You could also use a splash page to get addresses  many people think that these are annoyances but remember that Barak Obama used had one on his website during his presidential campaign and look at where he is now.  A splash page is simply a page where everyone arriving at your site is greeted with an enticing headline and an offer for news and updates on the product in general (not your specific product it’s too soon for that).  Once you have these addresses you can use them for sending out newsletters and articles that will indirectly sell your products as well as for direct selling mails.

Do not overlook the potential of offline list building techniques.  Get email addresses of friends and business contacts for your circle of relatives and friends and email these people giving the reference of whom you got their address from.  This will establish a common connection and make to person receiving the mail more amenable to reading it since someone he knows thinks it will interest him.

Spend time learning other list building techniques but using these can provide you with a good start  but do not expect overnight results; there are no list building techniques that can offer that.