Email marketing may well be a hugely effective form of online marketing, but to avoid huge penalties under spam legislation, your recipients have to agree to receive your material.

This is why email marketing is fantastic at building repeat business among established customers, rather than acquiring new ones. But that is not a negative. Far from it. It means you are communicating your offers and marketing message to the people who have already proven to be responsive to your offer.

So how do you build a large database of consenting customer email addresses quickly and easily?

The use of email marketing is on the rise, and there are a number of reasons why. Email marketing is a key part of any online marketing campaign, sending your message out to an established customer base and enticing them back to your site. Used well, email marketing can build brand awareness, develop customer loyalty and increase traffic and sales.

But how sure are you that your wonderful efforts are reaching your entire list? How do you know enough people are even reading your message? Here are some of the most common email marketing mistakes.

Viral marketing works on the premise that your service or product is popular enough to advance through a word-of-mouth process. The important goal of viral marketing is to promote your idea, business, product or service over and over until it reaches thousands of people.