When you talk about unique ways to earn money you have to consider building a mailing list and selling to it. Why do I say this is unique? Because most people do not do it right and here is why.

To build a mailing list you have to get traffic to a web page, get some of it to give you their contact information, and follow-up.
The other thing is you can not just sell all of the time. You have to find a balance between informing and selling. That is harder than it sounds.

Think about yourself. You go to a website. They offer a free report that is providing some free information on a subject you are interested in. Let’s say you are researching audio books on the internet and you find a website where they offer free clips in exchange for signing up for their free monthly newsletter on the top 10 audio books of the month.

You sign up and then you are taken to a page where you can access the clips. Once a month you get a newsletter telling you of the best new audio books. Is that a unique way to earn money online?

Could be. If it was me I would be inclined to mail a little more often. Maybe once a week if I had something to say. I would probably try to find something informational to say even when I did not have something to sell.

I saw Terry Bradshaw on Jay Leno a couple of weeks ago and he said he just stopped by even though he was not promotiny anything. Think about that for a moment as it pertains to selling and being a little unique compared to your competition.

What I normally see from so called internet marketing gurus is they get me to sign up. They email me hard for several days. Then the only time I hear from them is when they were able to talk one of their friends into giving me a very special deal. I unsubscribed from several of these lists last year because I just got tired of being sold all of the time or never hearing from them otherwise.

That’s the trick when using this method of earning money online. If you build a list do not ignore it. Take the time to make it more interactive. Send it to your blog where people can comment and digg your blog posts. Ask for opinions and if someone takes the time to email you get back to them.

Then when you do have something to sell you will find a receptive audience and one that does not hit the unsubscribe button. This makes lead capture, blogging, and email marketing, a unique way to earn money and a long term one.