To have a profitable email list you should have a fully functional webpage, with a sign-up form. Before you use such a form, have a double opt-in system in place. This means, your subscribers will confirm twice that they are interested in the information you provide. Don't send your customers, potential or current, any spam. Plenty of email marketing firms provide complete email list management software. All you have to do is download it, install it and your campaign is ready to roll.

There is no dearth of professional email marketing companies but you should be cautious about the services you hire. Not all companies are reputable and trustworthy. The company you choose must be one that's on the whitelist of popular email service providers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL. Being on the whitelist will ensure your mails reach your subscribers' inbox and junk or bulk mail folders. A list of subscribers is useless, if every mail you send does not reach them. Spam filters are one of the reasons companies have poor email delivery rates.

When you have a reputable email marketing company to monitor your campaign, you can bypass a number of issues related to delivery. Once you go live with your sign-up form, the process that follows is completely automated. With time, you can customize the form and incorporate 'Postal Address' and 'Phone Number' fields. You must track the campaign meticulously to understand how many people have subscribed to your emails. Based on this information, you can make the required changes to your campaign.

When your campaign kicks-off, offer potential subscribers a freebie of some sort in return for their email addresses. Offer discounts on a product or give one away as a free sample. This is a very effective way to woo new clients. The other, and much better way to grab your subscribers' attention, is to supply them with quality content. You can publish a monthly newsletter to meet this objective.

Returns on marketing investments are the highest, when combined with effective customer relationship management. However, any mistakes and you will get labelled as a spammer. It takes time to build a successful email list. Be patient with the process and aim to gain the trust of your subscribers before you make sales pitches to them.

Last, but not least, be sure to obtain good software to make list management easy.