Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Do not try to purchase a list. Instead, rent one or do a co-promotion (ride along) with someone who already has one that's relevant to your target audience.

List rental prices can range from $50 per thousand names to $300 per thousand, depending on the type of list (business, consumer, snail mail or email, etc.)

Response rates are different for every business and every offer. Generally response is higher as commitment is lower and vice versa. For example, if you offer a free Lamborghini you might get a response rate of 95%. If you require people to pay $50 to subscribe to a magazine, the response rate might be 2%.

The DMA's 2007 Response Rate report found the best response rates by type of campaign and marketing channel were:

2.15% (for direct orders or contributions) by direct mail
4.09 (for lead generation) by email
5.36% (for traffic building) by direct mail

(if you want the full report, it costs $445 (for non-members) and you can get it here:

https://tinyurl.com/4dvxnl

Feel free to contact me offline for more on mailing lists (or check my profile, there's a long article on my site about this).

You can certainly use a compiled email file for a campaign like this, however, there are better sources that are more targeted and will likely be more successful. I recommend using a subscriber file that has an email component. Many controlled circulation publications offer postal addresses as well as email addresses for third party list rental. The email address files are opt-in and the recipient is looking to receive messages related to their business. List owner approval is required, and the list is rented for one time use, unless otherwise negotiated. The list owner usually requires that their chosen service bureau does the email transmission. The mailer (you) must provide the html or text message to the service bureau and they pull the list and handle the "blasting" process.

I did some quick initial list research and found a few great options for reaching the agriculture industry. I'm a list broker, so this is what I do every day. If you are interested in working with a list broker feel free to contact me off-line. Good luck!

Carrie