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No doubt about it, spam annoys. It's a hassle. It's intrusive. It wastes time and resources, and frustrates anyone who receives it. The last thing anyone wants when checking their email is a cheap price for "Vi@gra". With as much spam that proliferates the networks of the internet, or attempts to, the last thing any business owner or marketer wants is to have their marketing emails categorized as spam. Nevermind having them blocked by email hosts and internet providers because someone complained that they were sent spam by the business.

Fortunately, spam filtering has gotten more sophisticated and most unwanted emails get kept out of your average internet user's inbox. This doesn't stop the spammers from trying however. Most spammers are clandestine "boiler-room" operations who use guerrilla advertising tactics to get their emails to you. They may come up with a trick here and there to get their emails past your spam filtering. But eventually the spam filtering will figure it out and block them too. The only reason they still exist is because companies and shady businesses will still pay them to try to get their spams to your inbox.

So, how does an advertiser use email without having the email be construed as spam? There are several key ways to do this:

1. Build your own list of email addresses to send mail periodically out to. This can be done several ways. Ask your current customers to refer friends and family to you. You should be doing this anyway. By giving your customers an extra incentive to share the love about you, you will almost always get them. Ask for their email addresses, make it worth everybody's while, and they will give them. Find ways to get email addresses from prospects via off-line sources too.

2. Offer your website visitors an incentive to get on your mailing list. This can be anything from a monthly drawing for a trip to Disney World, to a gift certificate to their favorite restaurant. The money you spend on premiums will be more than worth it when you find you have several thousand new people you can directly market to regularly with their permission. If you net even a small percentage of your overall visitors, it's worth the effort.

3. "Piggy-back" your offer on another non-competing company's mailing list. Many companies have solid, responsive lists that they will let you have a crack at for a piece of the action. The easiest way to give these other companies a piece of the action is by having an affiliate program in place. An affiliate

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