Lists – To Buy Or Not To Buy That Is The Question

I have been asked so many times by people whether they should “Buy” Lists of email addresses they can send promotional emails to.

Just the other day I received an email from someone who read my blog posts on creating lists and it said “Maggie what you have written is fantastic, I learnt lots, however, Why wait months to slowly build up your own list of email addresses when you can piggy-back on someone else’s efforts?”

Well my answer is this –

While the idea seems attractive (and let’s face it, it does) there’s a big trap waiting for anyone pursuing this course of action.

Let’s look in detail at the important issues surrounding this.

The first issue is how you come to obtain that bulk list of email addresses.

I only know of 2 ways – Renting or Buying

So lets look first at List Rental

Renting lists in some areas is a recognized and accepted practice in email marketing.

For a Fee – Owners of large email lists will send an email to their list on your behalf.

Pros and cons of this action – you never get to see the email addresses on that list. The list owner does all that for you they have complete control which in my opinion leaves a gaping hole for people who are unethical not to do the right thing by you.

Plus each time you use a rental list you pay your hard earned  $$s and you never get control of the list. 

So how about Buying a List?

After you pay the purchase price for the list, there are no further fees to pay. EEEOOOWW sounds good, you rub your hands together with glee, You get excited, you think of all the promotional messages you can send as often as you like …

Really, Really great right?

Wrong!  With a Capital “W”

All I can say is purchasing a bulk email list is a very quick slippery slide to email marketing hell!

Pros and cons of this action – Firstly you have to ask the question – where have these names and email addresses come from?  The short answer is someone has collected this list of email addresses for their own use.  For their own valuable resource to regularly email to, to boost their sales, build their own relationships etc.  Why would they want to sell it?  After all the $$$’s are in a good cultivated list.

Remember, the value of an email list is only preserved if you don’t abuse it.

People have signed up to receive information from a particular person they have not signed up to receive information from a third party.  Unless that was specifically stated at the time the person put in their email address.

So what happens to that list if the owner does sell copies to anyone willing to pay the right price? It gets contaminated! Nobody is controlling how many emails or even what type of emails people send the list.

The addresses get bombarded with messages, responses collapse plus you can get reported as being a spammer.

I know I would NEVER sell my list, it is my asset, if I lost everything tomorrow, as long as I had my list, I would get back on top in no time, so what am I saying?

“No I repeat again NO list owner is ever going to sell copies of their address list, if they want to preserve its value”.

If somebody does offer to sell and send you a bulk list of email addresses, 99 times out of 100 you’re getting a spam list. That’s a list of addresses of people who have not agreed to receive messages like yours, or who are on a list that’s been inundated by others. 

At best, your messages to that list just elicit no response. At worst, you’re labeled a spammer, which has so many consequences ALL OF THEM BAD, resulting in you possibly being blacklists.

Run, run away fast if your offered an email list – run … … because my friends, you are being offered what Grandmother would call “A Pig In a poke” (Meaning your being scammed!)

Until Next time

I Cheer you on.

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Tagged as: Building Email Lists, Buy Email Marketing List, Email Marketing, email marketing black lists, Internet marketing, List Building, Tips of email marketing lists, tips on list building