How many times have you heard the phrase "the money's in the list?" Probably a lot if you have been involved in internet marketing for a length of time. While I completely agree, I would like to add to this phrase and say "the big money's in the database." If you want to start making the really big money, I'm talking tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of dollars a year from your business, you have to learn how to do database marketing for your business.

So what is database marketing? Database marketing is when you gather together data about your prospects and customers and use this data to market your products and services more efficiently and effectively. Do you realize that if you take a look at all the big companies, I'm talking about companies that are publicly traded and making an insane amount of money every year, the large majority of them use database marketing.

That's called a clue.

Case in point, take a trip to your local supermarket. Chances are your local supermarket is part of a national chain. There are very few local supermarkets left due to global competition. When you arrive at that supermarket, pick up some groceries and go to the checkout counter. The cashier will likely ask you if you have some type of "advantage" card.

The advantage card gives you discounts on your groceries that you won't get if you don't have the advantage card. For the supermarket, the advantage card gives the supermarket the ability to store your identifying information into a database so that they can use it to market better to you. Not only do they have the basic information, such as your name, your address and your telephone number. They also have your shopping habits, because remember, before you complete your purchase, you have to swipe that advantage card.

This is a classic example of database marketing at work.

Even though you are not a multi-million dollar national supermarket chain or retail store, you can still employ database marketing in your business as well. The key is to develop a system to gather the information and then develop a system to store and use the information.

How do you gather the information?

One strategy that you can use is the same strategy the supermarkets use. You can create some type of "preferred buyers" club where any member of the club receives discounts or special perks that other prospects and/or customers do not receive. The only requirement is to sign up for the club by providing some simple information, such as your name, address and telephone number.

Employing this ONE strategy would put you light years ahead of much of your competition, ESPECIALLY if you are running an internet business. Do you realize how much of your competition isn't gathering any information about your customers besides a name and an email address? If you take it one step further and are able to get an address and a telephone number, that opens up the door for you to use TWO additional means of getting your offers in the face of your prospect.

So decide today to develop a plan to employ database marketing into your business model. This one step could literally triple your annual revenue for your business!

Mark Garland is the owner of Analyzed Marketing Solutions. If you are wanting to learn effective marketing for your website for small business then you will definately be interested in his marketing eCourse titled "The Total Marketers Handbook".