Bulk Email Lists – No, No, No
I’m having a battle with one of our clients over email marketing. He wants to buy a list of 50,000 business people and I think he’s nuts.
Actually, Steven (not his real name) isn’t nuts at all. He’s a very bright software company owner who has a real knack for sales and marketing. But on this issue, he’s wrong.
Steven sees this email list as an opportunity to inexpensively reach out to a significant number of potential new customers. I see it as a nightmare.
First – and probably foremost – there’s the issue of permission. Steven’s list broker has positioned this as a permission-based email list. But upon further questioning the broker admits that the list is not permission-based specifically for Steven’s company and he (the broker) suggests an up-sell service where the list company sends an introductory email and asks permission for Steven’s company to email them. Steven isn’t interested because of the cost.
What Steven doesn’t see – or chooses to ignore – is the potential cost to his company’s reputation and his future ability to communicate via email with prospects and even his existing clients.
Using a bulk email list like the one Steven is considering is almost certain to result in spam reports, blocked email at the corporate level and even getting blacklisted. (Email Marketing Reports has a good article on this titled Email address lists: buy, rent or leave alone?)
At best, Steven’s email is likely to be ignored and produce a really low response. Maybe the 50,000 business people did at some point give their permission to be sent 3rd party email. How many do you think remember that? How many of the 50,000 are actually interested in Steven’s application based solely on their job title? How many other vendors have sent irrelevant messages to this same list?
And if the dual threats of being labeled a spammer or being totally ignored aren’t enough, there’s a second reason this is a bad move for Steven. By focusing his attention on an outbound email campaign, he’s reducing focus on the tactics that will actually bring him more leads.
In software marketing, visibility is paramount. 80% of business technology buyers say they found the vendor – the vendor did not find them. And most searches begin online.
Given the limited resources of a smallish software company, Stevens should be focusing on increasing his online visibility, driving more traffic to his site, and improving the conversion of those visitors to sales-ready leads.
By many measures, open and click-through rates on business-to-business email campaigns are going steadily down. Yet technology companies continue to purchase bulk email lists.
It just doesn’t make any sense. The danger is too high; the potential pay-off is too low.
At Steven’s request we’re going to send a test email to a 30-person sample provided by the list company. I’m not sure what – if anything – this test will accurately tell us. Maybe it will buy me enough time to come up with a more effective argument against buying the list.
If not, I’ll let you know what happens. One thing I know for sure, our company won’t be involved.
Technorati Tags: email marketing, permission, traffic, technology marketing
This article was first published March 13, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog
I’m having a battle with one of our clients over email marketing. He wants to buy a list of 50,000 business people and I think he’s nuts.
Actually, Steven (not his real name) isn’t nuts at all. He’s a very bright software company owner who has a real knack for sales and marketing. But on this issue, he’s wrong.
Steven sees this email list as an opportunity to inexpensively reach out to a significant number of potential new customers. I see it as a nightmare.
First – and probably foremost – there’s the issue of permission. Steven’s list broker has positioned this as a permission-based email list. But upon further questioning the broker admits that the list is not permission-based specifically for Steven’s company and he (the broker) suggests an up-sell service where the list company sends an introductory email and asks permission for Steven’s company to email them. Steven isn’t interested because of the cost.
What Steven doesn’t see – or chooses to ignore – is the potential cost to his company’s reputation and his future ability to communicate via email with prospects and even his existing clients.
Using a bulk email list like the one Steven is considering is almost certain to result in spam reports, blocked email at the corporate level and even getting blacklisted. (Email Marketing Reports has a good article on this titled Email address lists: buy, rent or leave alone?)
At best, Steven’s email is likely to be ignored and produce a really low response. Maybe the 50,000 business people did at some point give their permission to be sent 3rd party email. How many do you think remember that? How many of the 50,000 are actually interested in Steven’s application based solely on their job title? How many other vendors have sent irrelevant messages to this same list?
And if the dual threats of being labeled a spammer or being totally ignored aren’t enough, there’s a second reason this is a bad move for Steven. By focusing his attention on an outbound email campaign, he’s reducing focus on the tactics that will actually bring him more leads.
In software marketing, visibility is paramount. 80% of business technology buyers say they found the vendor – the vendor did not find them. And most searches begin online.
Given the limited resources of a smallish software company, Stevens should be focusing on increasing his online visibility, driving more traffic to his site, and improving the conversion of those visitors to sales-ready leads.
By many measures, open and click-through rates on business-to-business email campaigns are going steadily down. Yet technology companies continue to purchase bulk email lists.
It just doesn’t make any sense. The danger is too high; the potential pay-off is too low.
At Steven’s request we’re going to send a test email to a 30-person sample provided by the list company. I’m not sure what – if anything – this test will accurately tell us. Maybe it will buy me enough time to come up with a more effective argument against buying the list.
If not, I’ll let you know what happens. One thing I know for sure, our company won’t be involved.
Thu, Nov 5, 2009
Conversion Optimization, Traffic
Written by: Susan Tatum