If you want to do business online you need to publish an ezine. If you have a website you need to establish a newsletter/ezine to go with it. You can't have one without the other. An ezine will allow you to establish a mailing list and obtain the email addresses of your site's visitors and establish a relationship with them. Maybe they won't buy from you the first time they visit your site, but down the road after they get to know and trust you through your ezine, they will.

Your ezine needs to be related to your website. Take my ezine MerlesMission for example the theme is webmaster freebies and that's the kind of thing my ezine includes. It's all about goodies for people who build and run their own sites. If you had a pet store website you might produce an ezine with dog and cat care tips for pet owners.

You need to publish at a minimum of once a month but even better is twice a month. Anymore then that you'll drive people nuts any less they'll forget who you are. Make sure you pick a regular publishing schedule and stick to it. Don't just send it out whenever you feel like it, bad, very bad.

There are many ways to host a list. You can download a script and do it yourself or you can use a third party service to host your list for you. Some you'll find for free and others will cost you monthly. If you're just starting out a free service will work fine but just be aware most of them will put an ad at the top of every one of your ezines that you send out. A small price to pay for free.

Once you get a large enough subscriber base you'll be able to sell ezine ads. Standard is a minimum of 1,000 subscribers before you sell ad space. There is usually a top ad which you can charge a little more for and regular classified ads which are a little cheaper. Some ezines even sell solo ads which are stand alone mailings with no other content, just an ad. If you do solos take my advice and send no more then 2 a month or you'll piss people off and lose a lot of your subscribers.

Topica Exchange: A professional service hosted by Topica which will host your list according to your needs.

Email Factory: Helps companies like yours build superior customer relationships with sharp, targeted permission e-marketing tools. A start-to-finish e-mail marketing solution, EmailFactory offers you every tool you'll need to achieve your unique marketing.

Yahoo Groups: Another free service offered by Yahoo. Keep in mind they will put an ad at the top of everyone of your mailings. Reliable and great for any beginner.

The Handbook of Ezine Publishing: If you're new to ezine publishing there's lots to learn. Start with the basics and learn as you go. This site will teach you how.

EzineArticles: Yes, if you're going to publish you should write your own articles but from time to time it's ok to use guest articles. Browse thru hundreds here for your free use.

IdeaMarketers: If you write articles you can archive them here for other publishers to use or you can browse through the archives and find articles to use in your own ezine.

50 E-zine Publishers Interviewed: Free E-book containing interviews by 50 of the top online ezine publishers featuring great tips that will help you become more of a successful publisher.

How to Write Ezine Ads That Guarantee Results: Ezine advertising is a great way to hit your target market but your ad needs to grab the reader's attention and pull them in. Download this free e-book that will tell you how to write award winning ads that will improve your sales.

Ezine-Tips: Learn about ezine advertising, ezine promotion, content creation, and more in this daily column on email newsletter publishing.

List Mail: Why use a thrid party to host your mailing list when you can purchase this awesome script for under 100.00 and install it on your own server. Loaded with features.

Mojo Mail: Mojo Mail is an intuitive, web-based e-mail list management system, which runs on any hosting account that can execute custom CGI scripts. Free.