How to build the "list" when you don't have visitors?

I am at a road block with my site. I understand the importance of building an opt in list (business listings in my case), but you have to get visitors to the site first.

Any ideas? Has anyone had success with JV?

Well, you can buy e-mail address lists from various sources. But if you ask me, it is wasted money (very few providers of such lists are trustworthy, many of them sell outdated address lists and you are getting rated as spammer very quickly).

My recommendation: Buy a newsletter/mailing list management software for your website (Perl, PHP, whatever that will work on your server), add a "subscribe now" box to your website and wait. You will collect just a few addresses at the beginning, but these people are really interested in getting your information.

You also may ensure that the mailing list manager you decide for provides options for opt-in/opt-out subscriptions (user must confirm a subscription and can unsubscribe from any mailing you sent) to meet certain legal requirements of your country.

For mailing list management you can use either www.aweber.com or www.constantcontact.com.

I've used both with a great deal of success.

Or start your own newsletter management... as mentioned, there is enough software outside and you even find a CGI software on our SunnyScript website (MailingStar) that is suited for small/mid sized businesses.

One way I built up my newsletter "opt in" was to advertise a contest on a sweepstakes website. Signing up required newsletter signup. I've been lucky that most of those people have not opted out. Got over 100 signups that way.

I agree that contests are an excellent way to encourage sign-ups. People love free stuff. I also have used the "automatically be entered to win when you sign-up" contest promotion and it worked very well. Here, I also sent "news of the contest" to many of the top online contesting sites, something that doesn't really take long to do, and it paid off in terms of growing my subscriber list.

You can also try offering free incentives, like a free report, e-book or similar. For a woodworking site, offer a free DIY project plan or guide. For a site that sells children's clothes and toys, offer free printable coloring pages. A cookware site can offer a free guide to preserving Teflon cookware.

What you offer doesn't have to be a huge thing, its just something to give people an added incentive to join. As an added bonus, you are also going to be able to promote your own knowledge and expertise on a particular subject as well.

Also, consider archiving your newsletters on your site. If you are really providing a good newsletter that is related to your Web site, that has a good mix of knowledge and offers, the knowledge portion is going to make for good SEO.

If, when searching Google for tips on a topic you covered in a newsletter, it could lead a potential subscriber right to an archived one on your site -- where they might also sign up for your newsletter right from that online one because they see the newsletter content and are interested.

Good luck,
Vangie