Is purchasing a opt in list a good idea for email marketing.... If so can someone provide to recommendations to some opt in list sellers I would appreciate.
It depends on what you are selling. Advertising furniture to an email list would never work. But, if you are selling, say, Web hosting - then you might be on to something.
Personally I hate spam. I wouldn't like the very idea to get an e-mail even from a known company. In my eyes, this is a mean trick I do not use it.
He is referring to opt-in - that is different from spam, because opt-in means you have agreed to receive it.
Yes. please someone post more on this. I made a post the other day that had no replies about this same subject. Are opt-in emails a via marketing solution?
All, I advise against purchasing email lists under any circumstances. To answer the original question, no - any email list other than your own is not a viable marketing tactic. Even if the list is called an opt-in list, that doesn't mean they've opted to receive your email; you'll open yourself up to being reported as a spammer; and it's generally not a good way to start a marketing relationship. I recently posted an article about bulk email lists on our blog. Unfortunately I can't post a link yet, so I'll paste the text below. Cheers, Susan Pascal Tatum Landing Pages » Bulk Email Lists – No, No, No By Susan Pascal Tatum | March 13, 2008 I’m having a battle with one of our clients over email marketing. He wants to buy a list of 50,000 business people and I think he’s nuts. Actually, Steven (not his real name) isn’t nuts at all. He’s a very bright software company owner who has a real knack for sales and marketing. But on this issue, he’s wrong. Steven sees this email list as an opportunity to inexpensively reach out to a significant number of potential new customers. I see it as a nightmare. First – and probably foremost - there’s the issue of permission. Steven’s list broker has positioned this as a permission-based email list. But upon further questioning the broker admits that the list is not permission-based specifically for Steven’s company and he (the broker) suggests an up-sell service where the list company sends an introductory email and asks permission for Steven’s company to email them. Steven isn’t interested because of the cost. What Steven doesn’t see – or chooses to ignore – is the potential cost to his company’s reputation and his future ability to communicate via email with prospects and even his existing clients. Using a bulk email list like the one Steven is considering is almost certain to result in spam reports, blocked email at the corporate level and even getting blacklisted. (Email Marketing Reports has a good article on this titled Email address lists: buy, rent or leave alone?) At best, Steven’s email is likely to be ignored and produce a really low response. Maybe the 50,000 business people did at some point give their permission to be sent 3rd party email. How many do you think remember that? How many of the 50,000 are actually interested in Steven’s application based solely on their job title? How many other vendors have sent irrelevant messages to this same list? And if the dual threats of being labeled a spammer or being totally ignored aren’t enough, there’s a second reason this is a bad move for Steven. By focusing his attention on an outbound email campaign, he’s reducing focus on the tactics that will actually bring him more leads. In software marketing, visibility is paramount. 80% of business technology buyers say they found the vendor – the vendor did not find them. And most searches begin online. Given the limited resources of a smallish software company, Stevens should be focusing on increasing his online visibility, driving more traffic to his site, and improving the conversion of those visitors to sales-ready leads. By many measures, open and click-through rates on business-to-business email campaigns are going steadily down. Yet technology companies continue to purchase bulk email lists. It just doesn’t make any sense. The danger is too high; the potential pay-off is too low. At Steven’s request we’re going to send a test email to a 30-person sample provided by the list company. I’m not sure what – if anything – this test will accurately tell us. Maybe it will buy me enough time to come up with a more effective argument against buying the list. If not, I’ll let you know what happens. One thing I know for sure, our company won’t be involved.
I would agree with Susan. As well as the spam perception and risk to company reputation there is is the issue of accuracy. Also click through rates are likely to be extremely low - less than 1%, before you even get to actual conversion to buying your product. It is better to look for list owners / websites with a similar audience to yours that have a newsletter and offer affiliate income on advertising on their newsletter. Or get creative and negotiate a reciprocal advert with their company in your newsletter. (ie they put your ad in thier newsletter to an agreed number of their customers and you do the same for them) This way you are targetting a similar audience, you are percieved as endorsed because you are in a trusted source and of course if you are doing affiliate then you only pay on results.
Now a days the success ratio with Email marketing has reduced.Try getting hands dirty with social sites they are gold mines to traffic.