List Buying - “Don’t Give Marketers a Bad Name”

Thinking of purchasing a list to increase leads?

Think twice!

Marketers and sales professionals, who still treat email marketing like direct mail marketing, need to get a reality check. They need to upgrade their tactics to make marketing relevant in this millennium. 

Why do you think list buying is a deadly tactic for marketers?

• Because you purchase a list that your company does not have any relationship with.

• Because your email response rate will deteriorate, as recipients have not explicitly stated interest in receiving mails.

• Because when you send them an email, you run the risk of being blocked by ISPs by sending unsolicited spam.

• Because when recipients see a mail from someone they do not know, it is automatically sent to the junk folder.

With email marketing, relationship with your recipients is the key to a successful campaign. The ideal method is to build your own list. In that way marketers can also adopt best practices such as segmentation and triggered campaigns based on behavioral patterns.

The main issue with list buying is that it contains inactive email addresses that invariably will be detected by spam traps and honey pots. By maintaining a house list on the other hand, regular data cleaning can be conducted to remove inactive email addresses and reduce bounce rates.

Email marketing campaigns should ideally have:

• Recipients that have a relationship and association with you and your company.

• Emails that refer to previous correspondence and past engagement.

• Emails that offer something more than what the recipient received in the past.

There is no shortcut to marketing, brand building and promotion, you have to nurture prospects and customers and eventually a relevant relationship and database can be developed.

As Mike Volpe, CMO, HubSpot rightly quoted, “Doing marketing right, building relationships and creating love for your company requires some work. Suck it up and do your job, and please stop giving marketers a bad reputation by cutting corners.”

We respect people’s preferences and privacy; if they not opted-in, we do not have them in our databases. Sign up to try out our white-listed databases; see how it fits in implementing your targeted campaigns!