I know, I know, I read the rules. It's against the rules to buy/sell/give away email leads on digitalpoint. I'm not offering any, looking for any, or giving any away here. I'm wondering what would be more profitable-- mailing them myself or selling the lists to advertisers? Would I approach a local business or send out some emails to vendors online? For example, if SWIM has a ~75k email list of people into bodybuilding, could I approach the nearest supplement store to try to sell them the leads?
I would suggest testing to determine which is more profitable for you. Could you provide more details? Will the leads be sold exclusively to one supplement store or will they be offered to multiple stores? You can charge a higher price for exclusive leads. If not, you can offer the leads for a set amount of time before offering them to the store's competitors. If you were mailing yourself, will you be offering your own product or will you promoting as an affiliate?
Selling lists is just a shady idea in general. I think the overall quality and responsiveness of purchasing an email list has really gone down hill the last few years too I would imagine. So many people are aware of how spam works in their inbox and the vast majority of people who have spent any amount of time online aren't typically gullible enough to click on those emails from sources or about topics they have no association with. I think a big portion of it would be how you obtained the leads. Using your illustration, if they signed up to receive information about bodybuilding, then perhaps your most profitable method would be to sign up as an affiliate at amazon and shoot out an email to your list about one of the products you've used and are recommending. Do this once every month or so, but not too often. I think honesty is the best policy.
It'd be as an affiliate and I'd probably only approach one store with it. I have targeted email lists of multiple niches obtained from admins of semi-popular forums (usually ~50k+ members). I don't think they'd be easy to sell online which is why I'd have to approach a local company.
I think weird about it . If we do not buying email list ! But we get their contact in directories and email them about our promo.. is that illegal as well? because i knew that directories allow you to collect huge contact and even yellow pages . IF you got a big list , do not sell them !!! Because it only allow you to earn one time from each person. just do as a service , help them to blast newsletter but in your own template and from you. This not only help you to earn one time , it able to earn recurring if they feel useful and got the result.
If you have a decent mailing system you could stry split testing to see what gets better click through rate / conversion ... either a direct offer from a merchant or a intermediary / affiliate page leading to a merchant .. then you will know what is best thing to do. Personally, if you have a good list, I think you are better off selling to them yourself ... that way you can get repeat custom and once they have bought off you once the are more likely to buy off you again because you build trust.