SolveYourProblem
Article Series: Opt In Email
Is There A Downside to Purchasing an Opt-In Email List?
As
you begin your email marketing campaign have you thought
about purchasing leads from a third party? Have you weighed the pros and cons of doing so? Is it better
to create your own leads over time as opposed to purchasing
50,000 or more at one time? This article will examine these
questions along with the benefits and liabilities that you
will face if you purchase leads from a third party.
Many services offer hundreds of thousands of leads. It is
your responsibility to decide if the leads, you purchase,
are of actual addresses of consumers who have a history of
purchasing on the Internet. There are programs that will
provide you with thousands of email addresses of individuals
who have never participated in Internet shopping and companies
obtain their addresses by means less than ethical. It is
important to know where your leads come from. Do you know
the source of the leads that come from the company you are
considering?
There
are companies that use the opt-in technique to assure
that the names you are receiving want to hear from you about
your product and/or services. Remember that you are ultimately
responsible for your leads whether you gather them by your
own means or purchase leads through another source. If that
source proves to be unethical and you contact individuals
who never gave their permission liability for violating Spam
regulations falls upon you. Another possibility with lists
that have not been gathered ethically is those you receive
your emails may already have filters in place that automatically
bounce email or they delete it on sight. That may be bad
but if they start complaining to your Internet Service Provider
(ISP), your account could be shut down or removed completely
from the Internet.
Another consideration when deciding to purchase opt-in leads
from an outside source is the cost. Will you pay a low cost
for thousands of leads? Is the cost per email address? These
questions are important in deciding the best route to take.
The idea of spending a small amount of money for thousands
of leads may sound tempting, but do remember you get what
you pay for. So, if the company is offering this service
do not be surprised if many of your leads never gave their
permission to receive your information (or anyone else for
that matter). If you decide to pay per email, that could
be costly if you are looking to build a large email marketing
list.
Spammers will try to join as many lists as possible to gain
access to emails and then begin to spam your customers. They
do this through automated tools and you have to be wise to
who you allow into your groups. This can be complicated if
you purchase your lists through a third party because you
do not know where the addresses have come from. It would
be to your advantage to inform your customers about receiving
mail that is not directly from you and to report to you so
that remedy the situation. This is part of managing your
customer base; you do not want to lose your customers based
on someone else's unethical tactics.
A provider of opt-in leads is The List Guy who provides
daily opt-in leads, in three ways:
