@sbush

I feel the value of an opt-in email list is greater than an equal sized Twitter or FB following.

We publish a monthly email newsletter about web marketing tactics for small business. Often, when I ask a new client how they heard of us they tell me that they’ve been subscribed to our mailing list for 6, 12 or even 24 months!

No way I would have gotten that business unless I got them to subscribe to their email newsletter.

So our technique is about creating value for our customers/prospects, establishing our expertise, and having a call to action at the end of each newsletter.

We also have a Quick Links section of our ezine where we link to our favorite blog posts of the month. I see that a lot of email subscribers click over there and check out our blog, too.

The best method of building your email subscriber list (IMHO) is to offer some sort of email bait. Don’t just say “Join our mailing list!” which sounds like code for “Let us spam you!”

Instead, set up a free download available only to subscribers, or give store discounts only to subscribers in your ezine.

If you’re interested, you can see how we do it at flyte.biz. We have a free download for “10 Questions to Ask Before Setting Up a Website.” On our blog we do basically the same thing, except the article is “The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make.”

Hope this helps!