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If you’re considering delving into email marketing, you may be wondering whether it is better to buy an email list or build one yourself. You may have even received an offer from a company selling email lists.
Let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Buying an Email List to Use for Your Email Marketing
There are lots of sellers that will be willing to sell you an email list. However, not all email lists are made equally. Having a list of email addresses does not mean those recipients are terribly interested in your message. Often, these lists are not very well targeted.
In addition, spam can be a threat with these lists. In some cases, not only will the email owner not be interested in receiving your message, they may actually resent receiving it. This may prompt them to complain about you spamming their email address. This can be a serious issue. Consider setting up an opt-in email campaign if you do decide to purchase an email list. This will likely cut down on the number of viable addresses on the list but it will also prevent you from spamming anyone unintentionally and provide proof that the email owner agreed to receive your email messages in case of a complaint.
Building Your Own Email Marketing List
Building your own email list is what I would recommend if you’re serious about your email marketing efforts.
Firstly, building your own list is something you can do at no cost though it will take longer to build a list this way.
Secondly, you can target your list more tightly if you build it yourself. A targeted email list is much more effective than one that is more generalized. Whether your goal is to increase traffic to your website with your email list or to sell your products and services, you’re likely to be more successful if your list is looking for the specific information that you’re providing.
How do you target your email list? By planning out your email campaign in advance, making sure your messages are beneficial to your purpose, and telling your prospective subscribers exactly what they can expect from you when you ask them to provide their email address.
If you build your own email list, you can even create more than one list and segment your list into different interests, allowing you to target your lists even more efficiently. For instance, for this blog, many of my readers are interested in blogging but some are really only interested in Facebook advice or perhaps in learning how to use Twitter. So, I could create three different lists: blogging, Facebook and Twitter. Each of the email campaigns would focus on a different topic. There may be some overlap in email addresses between the lists but because each list would be receiving a different email message, the overlap wouldn’t be a problem.
Have you built your own email list? Or bought a list for use with your email campaign? Did you have success? Do you have any advice? We’d love to hear about your experiences.
Photo Courtesy of puuikibeach/Flickr.com
About Lorie Huston, DVM
Lorie Huston is a veterinarian, pet health and pet care expert, professional writer, blogger, social media and blogging consultant, and SEO strategist.
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