Should You Buy An Email List For Your Business?
Building an email list can be quite difficult – because it requires a lot of time and effort.
For this reason, most people are tempted to take the shortcut route of buying an already established email list – so as to shortcut the process.
But the biggest question is;
‘Is it a good idea to buy an email list?’
That's what will be discussed in the quick post.
I will look at both sides of buying an email list i.e. the good & the bad.
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Without wasting time, let me quickly discuss about the good side.
• Buying an email list helps to save you time (if the list is legit)
As mentioned earlier, building an email list from scratch can be quite stressful – because it requires a lot of effort.
However, if you find a list that's already established, you can quickly develop a database of customers in just a short space of time.
This allows you to start promoting your products to that list ASAP – thus, allowing you to get sales in the shortest time possible.
In this case, you'll be better off than a person who's trying to build a list from scratch – since that person might struggle to get leads and sales in the short run.
Thus, buying an email list can help to leapfrog the process.
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Now, let's look at the ugly side of buying an email list;
• The list might've been build using scrapping techniques
One of the main reasons why l don't like buying an email list is that, you don't actually know how the list was built.
Most people are now scrapping thousands of emails from the web – and they try to sell them for a quick buck.
For example, if you go on Fiverr, you can buy an email list of 10k subs for only 10 bucks.
Like seriously?
How can a list of that size be sold for such a low price when a single email address is estimated to be worth $1 on average?
Why did the person decide to sell the list for such a low price – rather than just promoting affiliate offers to that list & make more money from it?
That's what indicates that the person didn't put much effort into building the list – thus, he/she will be willing to accept any amount for it.
Thus, before buying an email list, you should make sure that it was built using legit ways – otherwise, you'll lose your money unnecessarily.
• Customers might start unsubscribing from the list i.e. if they find out that their emails were sold
Another reason why l don't like buying an email list is that, customers might start unsubscribing if they find out that their email addresses were sold to another person.
If people subscribe to a certain email list, they might mainly be interested in that particular person/business alone more than anything else.
Hence, if there's change of ownership in that list, customers might start losing interest – even if the new business offers the same exact products/services.
Thus, if you buy a pre-build list, you must be prepared for that.
• Some email providers might penalise you for trading confidential information
Last but not least, some email providers like Gmail might get you in serious trouble if they realise that you bought some email addresses.
As we all know, an email address is something that is confidential – thus, it shouldn't be traded illegally.
Thus, you must be prepared to face the consequences if you decide to buy an existing email list.
Also, some email marketing softwares like GetResponse, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, etc. – do not allow this form of practice since it is deemed illegal.
Thus, you might find some hard time trying to export the email list to these email marketing platforms.
Or in some cases, you might require some verification from the owners of those email addresses – which might be an intimidating process.
Wrapping Up
So the question of ‘should you buy an email list' really depends on your personal thoughts & opinions.
But before you decide to buy one, you should take into account the facts discussed in this post – so that you can weight if it is worth it or not.
But personally, l prefer to build my own list from scratch – so as to build a loyal fan base of people who knows, likes, and trust my business – rather than hitchhiking someone's else list.
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