Question

Topic: E-Marketing

How To Find A Reputable Email List Seller

Posted by Anonymous on 2/13/2013 at 4:50 PM ET 250 Points
It seems all I receive is spam from defunct companies trying to sell me lists for my business. I really want to purchase a list and will require a small sample before purchasing. How do you find reputable companies and does anyone have a vendor they can recommend?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 2/13/2013 at 5:51 PM Member
    It depends. Who are you planning to target? Consumers or businesses, what geography, what vertical market, segments of a vertical market?

    More information always helps.
  • Posted on 2/13/2013 at 6:05 PM Author
    We are looking for businesses (B2B) and would prefer US as well as the ability to drill down on ourr targeted industry or job titles.
  • Posted by darcy.moen on 2/13/2013 at 10:25 PM Member
    Just don't do it.

    Go out and buy yourself a copy of Seth Godin's book 'Permission marketing', and read it cover to cover.

    Rented email lists are one of the quickest ways to shoot yourself in the foot. If YOU didn't gather the email address yourself using an opt in form, you are edging very close to being a spammer yourself. Renting email lists and using them is 'spray and pray' marketing at best. These are in no way a qualified lead, and you'll tick off more people than you will generate leads. Mass marketing using rented lists is much like running around town taping your business cards to light posts, its a waste of time and effort that would better spent finding another system to generate qualified leads.

    You are asking for a lot of heartache and frustration, not to mention risking being added to Spamcop's blacklist.
  • Posted by Moriarty on 2/14/2013 at 2:38 AM Accepted
    You are far better off sorting out your own list just as Darcy says. Finding a reputable seller in a market jammed with people who aren't - or who don't know the fundamentals of marketing - is not going to be easy. It will take more time and effort than setting up a comprehensive PPC/SEO/Display (etc) campaign. The results will be better too.

    Ask the question for which your prospects are asking - and use that as your landing page. That way your audience is laser targeted.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 2/14/2013 at 3:51 AM Moderator
    Darcy Moen is right!
  • Posted by dean on 2/19/2013 at 8:00 AM Member
    This is a question we get a lot. To be certain there are hundreds of companies out there that will sell you an email list. However there are a few problems with this, first you have no idea what you are getting, as it is typically just a list of email addresses. Second once you have that list in hand, what would you do with it? Constant Contact and most of the other similar tools out there will not allow you to load a large list and simply mail to it. Third, and most importantly, you did not get permission from those contacts to mail them, so the chances you will get into the inbox are slim, and if you do it is likely to be ignored.

    Reputable prospect email marketing companies spend a lot of money building the lists they own, acquiring opt ins, verifying deliverability, appending additional information, scrubbing against national databases, credit reporting agencies, etc. For that reason, they will not turn around that valuable cleansed and verified data to another party to do with as they please.

    My company is BrandMailers, and we perform B2B and B2C mailings for a wide variety of business clients.
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