One big problem many online marketers face is getting people to buy things from them.

One trick they resort to is giving away free things in hopes of building a mailing list.

If you have been doing Internet marketing for any amount of time you know that a certain percentage of people online love things that are free. These people spend a good portion of their time surfing the Internet looking specifically for free offers.

As it pertains specifically to a home business niche it creates a problem for those of us trying to make money. This brings up a legitimate question and that is if everything is free how are you going to make money?

If you expect to make money selling to it there are a couple of very crucial things you must do when building your list.

1. I think it’s important right up front to let people know you are interested in their success and are offering useful information for free. However you’re also in this to make a profit and the only way to do that is to offer things for sale they might be interested in.

This way at least you have establish some parameters that not every mailing you do is going to be for free products. This will help a little bit.

2. The other thing you should do is consistently mail a mix of products you sell and useful information. The best way to do this is work with your list on a consistent basis.

I am always surprised how many email marketers build a list and then waste it by not mailing anything out to their subscribers. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to put together a short mailing and click the send button.

I’ve also been on email lists where I never hear from the person for a long time and then I hear from them three days in a row. I am usually left trying to figure out who they are!

On the flip side I’ve also been on lists where people mail me several times a day everyday of the week. Although I admire their persistence to me that maybe over doing it a little bit.

The bottom line is you cannot make money if you do not sell anything. If you send a mailing and somebody unsubscribes that is probably a good thing.

You can never make money selling things to people who get mad and unsubscribe from your list when you try to sell them something.