Do You Need to Buy a Mailing List?
As I’ve said here in the past, there are two basic ways to create or rather get an e-mail list. The first way is to build one yourself, over time by constantly pushing your offerings and giving your customers something in exchange for signing up for your mailing list. The second way is to look into buying or renting a list from a list broker or the owner of a list. Is the second option worth it? Here’s what you need to know:
You Always Pay to Save Time and Effort
The simple fact is that time really is money. If you think about this and take it to an extreme, you are almost always paying for time rather than just paying for things or services.
If you really wanted to do so for example, you could learn everything there is to know about diagnosing diseases and about manufacturing drugs so that you could avoid the expense of going to the doctor or buying medicine. However, it’s not practical for most people to do this and as such, most people choose to pay for the doctor and for manufactured drugs.
The same basic principle applies to almost anything you pay for – you pay for the time it takes to do something as well as for the time it took for someone to develop the expertise to do the job.
How Much Money Do You Have?
If you have the money to spare then, you can save yourself a great deal of time by buying or renting a mailing list from someone else and instantly building up your website so that you can earn more money from your customers. On the other hand, if money is tight, then you can “pay” for it by doing the hard work yourself and building your mailing list slowly.
Quality Vs. Speed
The other consideration when deciding whether to purchase or rent a mailing list as opposed to simply creating your own is the question of quality as opposed to speed. When you build your mailing list yourself, you know that the people who signed up once upon a time found something appealing about whatever it is that you happen to have for sale. There is no such guarantee when you buy or rent someone else’s list.
On the Other Hand
On the other hand, it is possible to find a list for sale or rent which will have people on it who have similar interests to those of your own customers, thus ensuring that you are able to get a reasonable number of these people to sign up for whatever it is that you have for sale.
My Suggestion
Personally, I suggest a multipronged approach which takes both ideas into account. Start by creating a way for people to sign up for your own mailing list on your website and make sure to push it wherever possible. However, at the same time, if you have the money to do so, look for a reliable list broker and rent a mailing list which has people on it who have expressed an interest in whatever product you happen to have for sale.
good post and one worth pondering over. many marketers say that the money is in the list. for us SEOs however it is a great way to stay in touch with current customers and send announcements of new services, promotions, or just tips they can use in their business to further grow from a search optimization perspective. certainly a tool well worth incorporating in one’s business, no matter what the business is.
Exactly. And don’t forget that by keeping in touch with your customers, you can sell them additional services. Remember my laundry analogy — doing SEO is like doing the laundry. Even when you’re done, you’ve still got more to do.