Are you running ads and marketing with tag lines that send people to your website? Then you're missing the point of internet marketing and losing out on your best money making opportunity.

First a little history. The guys who started internet marketing were all either successful direct marketers or people who learned from successful direct marketers. Direct marketing is marketing through the mail, catalogs, infomercials, etc.

Ask any direct marketer or any internet marketer who has gotten REAL results what the most important part of marketing is. They will ALL tell you it's the list, the list, the list. In internet marketing this means YOUR opt-in e-mail list for your ezine or newsletter.

The larger your list grows, the more targeted customers you have to market to for the rest of your life. If you're not building a list then you're wasting your time trying to market on the internet. The BIG PICTURE is more than one sale to one customer.

The ONLY purpose of an EFFECTIVE (money making) website is to capture e-mail addresses of targeted people who are interested in what you are selling. Why? Because most first time visitors to a site DO NOT BUY. Because you want customers for life, not customers for one sale and then bye-bye.

If you want to create good customers you have to earn their business. The only way to earn it is to follow up with them, let them get to know you and give them VALUABLE information for free. People buy from people and businesses they trust and trust can't be created from a one time visit.

You have to brand yourself just like The Gap, Coca-Cola, and Nike. When you buy their products you know what you're going to get. By the way, how many people do you know who only bought one coke or shopped at the Gap once and never went back?

Your newsletter sent to YOUR opt-in e-mail list is the way you get people to come back. It's how people get to know what you're about and whether they should buy from you. Of course you better not sell them crap even once or they'll be gone, but we're just talking about how to get them to the point of buying for the first time.

Instead of sending people to your website you should be sending them to an e-mail autoresponder. On the autoresponder you should write either a note about your newsletter or your site or both along with a link to your site. Even if your site is primarily set up to capture e-mails this will increase the amount of subscribers to your list much faster.

This way you have captured their e-mail for sure before they go to your site. Since your list is opt-in it means that if they don't want to be on it they can always click an unsubscribe link to get off.

If you want to increase your profits in the long run you need to focus on building your list. Don't be misled by thinking that you start an online business and go out and make a ton of money the first month. You can, but most people don't.

The internet marketing millionaires of today have well over 50,000 people on their lists. Lists they built over time and make more money from every time they send an offer.

You can do it too...if you stop sending people directly to your site.