Eventually all of the above. Initially you may not need a "paid" email account, but keeping your personal affairs and your business activities separate will simplify your life immeasuarably later on. One of the problems with using your personal email account for business, is that your will never be able to completely separate it once it becomes mingled except by creating a new personal account and then getting all of your personal contacts to make the change.

The basic email account that is included by most ISP's with fee based internet access, is designed primarily for the individual user for personal email communications. In general these accounts are more than adequate for personal activities but are not designed as "business" accounts. This is where family and friends communicate with each other, share pictures, play games and a variety of other personal activities. This service is convenient, easily accessible whenever you are "on line" and generally more than adequte for private personal use. Generally mail can be retrieved and sent from any computer with internet access.

Free email accounts are available from a number of providers. In return for providing a limited free email account, the provider will include sponsored advertising during the email retrieval and sending process. Some of the available resources are Yahoo, Muchomail, etc. These accounts typically offer 2 -6 megs of storage with additional storage space available for a fee. Usually accessible from any computer with internet access.

Most hosting accounts include POP3 email as part of the hosting package. These accounts typically allow you to receive and send emails through your hosting service. Some hosting accounts come with only one POP3 account while others have 5, 10 100 or an unlimited number of accounts. How many you need really depends on the nature of your business and the extent to which to use email in your business. Most POP3 accounts provided by your web host, include features such as autoresponders, mail forwarding and "catch all" services.

Both of the above services are basically the same. Most email accounts allow the collection and maintenance of an address book for user convenience of both senders and recipients of emails. These address books are primarily designed for use as individual "one time" mailings of individual messages. The service is fine for responding to the emails you receive or to send individual messages to family or friends, with the ability to "copy" your message to one or two additional recipients. This type of account is not suitable for distributing the same message to large numbers of persons or to do any kind of bulk mailing. In general, there are no provisions for automating any of the tasks associated with your mailing.

Email services that are available through your hosting account vary substantially from account to account, and host to host. Generally those hosts which cater more to business customers rather than personal use customers, have better email capabilities, both incoming and outgoing. Some of the features are: multiple email accounts, single message autoresponders, email forwarding, and mailing list maintenance. Some hosts offer these services as options for additional fees.

If you have a hosting account, then make sure that you are aware of the services available and take advantage of them to the extent they fit into your marketing efforts.

Contract services come in many varieties and configurations. Many, will "rent" or "sell" you a "safelist" of potential customers purported to have potential interest in a broad range of products and services. You make email your message to these lists using the services of the "Contract Host" for a fee. The basis of these fees vary significantly. Another option is to load your "list" to the "Contract Host's" server and do your mailing using their equipment. (Be careful that you do not lose control of your list or have it "appropriated" by a competitor or "list" marketer.