If you have a home business website and do not offer an email opt in function then you are potentially losing out on an awful lot of business. Spam is a big no no in the world of successful internet marketing so building an opt in email address list is priceless.

You may have spent days, weeks even months building your home business website. Your analytics tell you it is receiving a steady amount of traffic, yet your actual sales are not going up too high. Before you blame the product look at the way your site is set up. You have no guarantee those who surfed to your site will ever return again, so you may have only one shot at capturing their long term interest in your company by grabbing their email address.

Every home business, whatever it is, can offer something for free. A white paper, a report, a fun little newsletter, the possibilities are endless. All a visitor to your website has to do is share their email address with you willingly to receive their freebie. Once you have this email you can morally send out further updates, product promotions and the like and you will not be spamming the consumer.

Follow up is a crucial element for any home business to be successful. For instance, say you run a home based bridal favors business. A woman surfs to your site because she is recently engaged, looking for ideas, but not ready to purchase anything for a few months yet. If you can persuade her to share with you her email address you can send her regular updates and interesting tidbits so that when she is ready to begin wedding planning in earnest the chances are that your company will still be in the forefront of her mind.

The same concept can be applied to almost any home business venture and the difference it can make to your bottom line can be incredible.