Are you looking at buying email lists? It seems simple, yes? You simply start buying emails and sending individuals promotional content – a quick route, so to speak.
However, there is always a drawback to shortcuts. The time you save by not organically growing your email list hurts your business’s reputation, bottom line, and other factors that contribute to its success.
So should you buy email lists?
In fact, it might appear like you are saving time initially, but it’s a risky path to take for your company. The email list is supposed to be one of your most effective marketing resources. Therefore, if you purchase a list of emails, you risk losing that advantage.
5 Reasons For Not Purchasing Email Addresses
Consider for example you are checking your inbox. You see an email from a company you are not familiar with. You might be curious and open it.
Or you may not trust the sender and just delete the message without reading it.
You’ll be naturally annoyed once you realize that you had never agreed to get emails from a particular company. Your email contact information has been taken by an unknown person who wants to promote their content.
It resembles a door-knocking campaign in certain ways. This tactic is no longer used by most companies because it irritates customers. Individuals dislike having strangers ring their doorbells. Would you let someone into your house if you hadn’t invited them over?
Email marketing follows the same rules. When you buy an email list for marketing, you are knocking on strangers’ doors without their permission.
Let’s examine the reasons why purchasing email lists is never a good idea.
1. Chances Of Being Considered Spam Will Be High
Spam is undesirable, to put it simply. Email services like Hotmail and Gmail will start sending your messages to users’ junk folders if they are flagged as spam too frequently. The open rate would drastically decrease and most of your leads won’t even notice your emails if that takes place.
No one enjoys spam. It conveys the idea that you only care about making more sales and have no regard for the needs or rights of consumers. You don’t want to turn into that company.
Most people won’t recognize your brand in their inboxes if you acquire an email list. That typically results in a quick deletion or marking as spam for many customers.
Create an organic email list instead. Only email recipients who are genuinely interested in what you are offering. Because they value your brand voice, they won’t consider you spam.
2. You Won’t Receive Qualified Contacts By Buying Email Lists
You may have heard about the top ways to purchase email address lists from someone. You’re thrilled. You can stop counting on people to visit your site and register. Also, you no longer need to create free educational content.
The business may even claim that you may purchase a targeted list of emails. Perhaps, they will search through their list for people who fit your desired profile. Sounds fantastic.
You won’t, however, receive qualified email addresses.
A qualified person is somebody who is knowledgeable about your company and is interested in finding out more. Even if it takes weeks or months, he/she has the money and the desire to make a purchase from you.
No matter how tailored the email list is, you can’t acquire that by purchasing one. This is due to the fact that they are unfamiliar with your business and are unlikely to be good prospects.
Yes, you might be fortunate with some of them. That applies to all numbers games. However, if you obtain your connections naturally rather than purchasing them, your email list will be far stronger and more effective.
3. There Won’t Be Enough Engagement
In the case of email marketing, engagement matters. The issue is that the deck is already loaded against you.
You must first get recipients to read your emails. That is the first obstacle. You have little chance of interaction if they end up deleting the emails or putting them in spam boxes.
Next, you need readers to take an action depending on the content of each email, whether that be sending them to read a published article, benefit from a deal, or look at a new item. Clicks represent real engagement.
Engagement rates will definitely decline if you purchase an email list. Wouldn’t you prefer having all of your 100 subscribers reading and clicking through your emails than 2% of your 1000 “subscribers”?
Remember that you do not acquire “subscribers” when you purchase an email list. You are just given contact details. There is a big difference.
4. Purchased Email Lists May Have A Detrimental Effect On Brand Recognition
Even though recipients of unsolicited emails may not click through or open them considering the type of content, they might recall your company’s name. That is detrimental. Both reputation and brand recognition could suffer.
Consider the nearby service that frequently overflows your maildrop with poorly printed flyers. Due to the unwanted delivery, you may decide to steer clear of that business.
The same principles apply to email marketing. Customers who initially interact negatively with your business, such as through receiving spam emails, may “blacklist” your company totally because they don’t appreciate your business practices.
5. No Exclusivity In Contacts When You Purchase Email Lists
You do not acquire exclusive access to email addresses when you buy email lists. People on these lists frequently receive a deluge of marketing messages since the email list providers profit by selling the same contacts repeatedly.
Sometimes, merely to reduce the noise, those accounts will delete their old email addresses and create new ones.
Additionally, there are people who use certain email accounts for promotional material. They don’t want emails they didn’t request to clog up their professional or personal accounts. Purchasing a list of emails will significantly reduce your deliverability.
Additionally, this isn’t merely a result of spam. You can direct recipients’ emails to updates or promotions folders, which aren’t as frequently used as principal inboxes.
Your emails will probably be buried under several other emails if you purchase these “secondary” email addresses that are used for marketing.
Building An Effective Email List
It is possible to successfully promote your business without using purchased email lists. You really shouldn’t. At first, taking a short route could appear like a wise business move, but it won’t be helpful over the long haul.
The better course of action is to start from scratch and build a powerful email list. To increase the number of subscribers, use the traffic you already have. Convert website visitors with compelling offers, maintain contact with engaging emails, and monitor your email list to maintain excellent deliverability.
Following are the 7 steps required to create an effective email list.
1. Determine Your Target Market
Start by addressing the target audience. In order to effectively sell to university graduates between the ages of 25 and 35, you must ensure that your messaging is appealing to young professionals.
Be as detailed as you can. Your website can have a variety of lead magnets, each appealing to a certain segment of the target market. For instance, it’s possible that your items cover a wide range of personalities. For each, you’ll need a separate lead magnet.
Make a different email list corresponding to each of your target audiences after you have identified them. It’s possible that the recipients of one batch of promotional emails won’t be interested in the information you present to a different target group. Your list’s engagement and deliverability will both increase with segmentation.
Developing an email list can be made simpler by creating buyer personas. You may come up with an email marketing plan for each buyer persona once you have them. In this manner, the marketing materials you use to promote your business are consistent.
2. Create Useful Lead Magnets
Your target demographic should have a unique offer and lead magnet for each segment. The offer is how you word your headline and call to action, whereas the lead magnet includes the useful item you’re giving away, like a free e-book.
Let’s imagine, for example, that you manage a furniture business. There might be consumers that prefer low-end items while others want high-quality ones. Some clients are young adults preparing for their university residences, while others are families with children.
You must find methods to resonate with each of those groups. Make lead magnets on topics such as resting positions, budget-friendly affordability, enhancing the feel of the home, and more. Create offers that are compelling and match the buyer’s personas.
Curiosity can be aroused effectively by asking questions:
- Are you unhappy with the way your home looks? You can learn how to set up your furniture from this video.
- What does the way you rest reveal about you? To learn more, get this free handbook!
- Overwhelmed by the various types of sofas? Browse through our comprehensive buyer’s guide.
The headlines are the questions in bold, and the call to action follows. Try out various phrase and design combinations until you find the ideal mix.
3. Promote Exceptional Offers And Quality Content
Despite what many people claim, content is still important. Make sure your site’s content is highly targeted and helpful because it could have a significant impact on establishing a worthwhile email list.
Your educational content and blog posts are a good place to start. Produce content for podcasts, videos, articles, and other platforms that offers useful guidance or tips. Avoid copying what your competition is doing. Instead, improvise and provide unique content.
The same is true of your lead magnets and offers, which I’ll discuss in more detail in the section below. People wouldn’t give their email addresses away for free. Whether it’s a case study, e-course, or informational video, they expect something in return.
4. Write Catchy Headings For Landing Pages
Attractive headlines make your offer clear and use uncommon verbs and phrases. They address your target market directly.
It is a good idea to be more specific.
Let’s go back to the example of the furniture business. In order to find the proper balance between engaging and informative, you might experiment with a variety of headings on your landing pages for email collection.
- Sitting should be relaxing, not uncomfortable!
- Your character may be revealed by how you arrange your furniture!
- Have you received any compliments from your guests?
You get the idea. Regardless of whether you’re using the sidebar widget or a registration form in the midst of a published article, play around with phrases and keep your target audience top of mind while creating your headlines.
5. Use A Call To Action (CTA) Button
The goal of CTA is to compel readers to act in response to your offer and headline. No matter where they are in the sales funnel, you want customers to be driven toward learning about your business.
Making your CTA stand out is a fantastic approach to achieving that. Feel free to go bold and big. Massive engagement rates can be achieved with a CTA button that is a bold color and sticks out compared to the other elements within the page.
6. A/B Testing Multiple Variations Of Copy And Call To Action Buttons
It’s time to test your copy now that you’ve developed great content, determined your target market, and chosen headlines and calls to action. Even if your landing page’s title and CTA are excellent, you won’t know whether they can increase conversion rates unless you do A/B testing.
Perhaps, you can use A/B testing software right away to create the finest headlines possible. Create two good headlines, then test each one of them. Over time, keep improving the copy to continually increase site visitors.
Use your CTAs in the same way. Change the copy, button size, color, and position, among other things. You may even experiment with the hover effects and font selection.
You can examine the results after conducting A/B tests. Set up user behavior analytics, heatmaps, and recordings to ensure that you are giving your audience every incentive to convert.
7. Growing The Email List Using Other Platforms Like Paid Ads And Social Media
There are other ways besides your website to grow your subscribers. Take advantage of your social influence and paid marketing to encourage more signups rather than purchasing email addresses.
Send visitors to a place that asks them to join your email list rather than your sales or landing pages. You don’t need to purchase subscribers. They can be achieved through interacting with your visitors.
No matter what, the news does get out. If someone like the information in your emails, they might tell someone else about you. More signups will result from better emails, and you won’t need to pay for an email list.
Ads can be expensive, but if done correctly, email collection can have a phenomenal return on investment. Email marketing performs better than the majority of other lead generation and conversion techniques.
You’ll be better off even if you spend money to increase email subscriptions. Just be sure to target your visitors or the audience you want to reach by being helpful and interesting.
Don’t worry if you lack the funds to pay for advertisements. Simply work with the organic strategies I’ve covered in this post to grow your subscribers. Never purchase emails. Attract them with high-quality content.
Conclusion
Buying email lists makes no sense. It is not only a subpar substitute for building the email list, but it may also lower email deliverability, damage your brand, and cause spam filters to mark your communications.
Email marketing is still relevant. It still has the same value for businesses now as it did many years ago (you may also be interested in checking out the email name generator for business).
Take note of the 7 suggestions above to improve your email marketing plan.
Concentrate on bringing in traffic and turning leads into customers.
Get rid of any email lists you have already purchased.
This is the best way to safeguard your businesses and provide excellent service to your leads and, customers.