AWeber Email Marketing Tips

I know first hand about those email lists people sell you.
Another great informative blog! Keep them coming.

Good article. Even if there were no spam laws, the obvious question is if these lists are any good, why are companies selling them rather than just sending offers to them?

I don’t know anyone who has built a list who would be willing to sell it like these companies do.

Too bad the constant stream of new people coming online aren’t always able to see what a bad idea this is.

I totally agree. My biggest problem with obtaining email lists from someone or some other company is that the individuals on these email lists answered an ad that could be vastly different from I am trying to sell them! Thus being my main reason for working on my own email list since I want my subscribers to genuinely want what I have to offer.

Yes, I agree completely.

Never buy any list of E-mails!

I learned my lesson many years ago.

It was only a small list of 1000 people, but I saw that only 20 received my E-mail, without to purchase anything.

Build your list for Free is the best way!

It is not a fast process but it is a strong way!

I was in direct mail for several years renting a lot of direct mail "lists". What I learned with mailing lists is directly applicable to email lists.

In the direct mail scam world are people who pull lists from telephone directories and sell them as "hot prospects". This is the same as harvesting emails by having bots roam the Internet.

I found the only lists that worked for me were those who had purchased similiar products or had an interest similiar to what I was selling.

All other lists were duds!

So the lists (both direct mail and email) that work are buyers want a product like yours or have purchased from you before.

In goes without saying my best returns were the lists of my own customers. The conversion on those were 10 times or greater than those of great lists that I found.

And there is nothing new under the sun. Spam laws were passed. Before it was "Do not Call" legislation. No one could ever get Do Not Mail lists legislation started. Why? It is so expensive to mail and if someone is really sending "Junk" mail they go out of business. Junk mail kills itself.

Junk email does not because it is cheap cheap cheap and just as ineffective.

But the newbies in Internet marketing don’t know any better.

In general, the article is correct — there’s no magic bullet — but there are plenty of lists out there that DO work, it’s just VERY unlikely that new internet marketers will know what to look for.

Who owns the list?
Reputable national magazines, trade groups, charities, seminar lists — there are thousands of properly built lists that the owners would like to monetize further.
Look for: Owner must approve your mailing and one-time use.

What data is provided?
Sort by dates added to list; HOW was the list built – subscribers?, warranty cards? etc.

Sponsored or unsponsored mailing?
If the people on that list wouldn’t know who you are, i.e., you’re not a national brand, then you need to be introduced by the list owner.

It’s not rocket science, but you DO have to learn how to do it right, and then read up on Open Rates even when you have a quality list.

Thanks for sharing the downfall of buying email lists. As with all other "quick fix" offers on the Internet, buying email lists is definitely asking for trouble.

Absolutely, do not BUY email lists. If you do rent, rent carefully… use lists of subscribers, seminar attendees, associations, etc. As Dan said, you want people who have already bought something similar.

To answer Alex’s question, you build your own list by driving traffic to your site, offering a white paper, a book, or something else of perceived value, and asking for the opt-in. You drive traffic by writing articles, commenting on blogs, sending press releases, using AdWords, etc. etc.

While it definitely takes longer to build your own lists, the payoff is well worth it. When people like Robert Allen talk about being able to generate thousands of dollars in 24 hours, that’s how they do it, folks.

They mail to their lists.

Done properly, Email Marketing is a powerful tool

Justin

I don’t disagree with you but what are your thoughts on Jodi’s comment about renting lists? And what do you see as the difference? I often see claims of what I think are rental lists where Seller X maintains the database e.g. an industry mag but based on feedback from others, response rates are poor and bounce rates high.

I think the seminar attendee lists make a lot of sense but still seems to sound like list buying; albeit focused.

Thanks for your response.

Are we talking subjective SPAM or CANSPAM compliance? Yes, compliant emails can be identified and reported as SPAM- but isn’t the false reporting also a crime? Has anyone been sued or fined for reporting falsely?

CANSPAM compliance is easy. It applies only to solicitations for business (ie advertising) and requires a physical address of the sender, and an easy way to unsubscribe.

So if I offer something free for a certain list of people is SPAM even a consideration?

And if I deliver the freebie from a webpage that happens to have ads on it for other (priced) products- well, explain what the problem is with either the email free offer or the download page?

great article, can you keep me posted?

It’s much better to take out ad space in someone else’s mailing list who has an opt-in list than to purchase an email list. It’s also better to form relationships with other list holders and then offer to provide articles to publish in their online newsletter. You’ll get better exposure that way.

I once had a client who did buy an email list and she did get business out of it. She bought it after we stopped working together. I didn’t want to go that route and she did…. which is fine with me because I can keep looking at myself in the mirror and like what is looking back at me.

I’ve always believed in this philosophy, and live by it but now I’m working for a company that wants me to search the net looking to buy a database for the product it’s selling.

My dilemma is that I believe in the philosophy of building your own list but to do this task properly, I have to find the list of targetted leads and pass the info on.

Tough, hey?

Better to JV with somebody in your niche who already has a list. They have a relationship with those people, and can say, "Hey – this is something you need to know about" and the list listens.

I was ask many time to buy a list but I never believed in buying some one ells privacy It is good to read abbot this infraction that could happen to me. Thank you for all this informations

I had to laugh. SO TRUE about email lists!
The best part is that image
you chose.
ahahahahahhaa….

Good stuff.

Let’s say I rent one of those so called "targeted lists" I pay them to send only one message to 10.000.000 addresses for example.

The email is short and its only purpose is to direct them to a squeeze page where hopefully they will be converted into an actual double opt-in subscribers, my golden AWeber list so to speak…

Even a conversion of one per thousand would be a nice result…

What’s your thoughts on that? Anybody try that one?

Thank you Justin for bringing some clarity.

I think I will just stay away from those things then…

I am looking to build a business and not for some quick fix, I guess the answer will always boil down to GOOD CONTENT!

I am happy I found this post.

Ok,what if email marketing is not a part of your company’s publicity but a big part of it. How else could you get mailing lists that matters?

Thank you Amanda,Im gonna check those out…

There’s a better way to buy lists though. When you get a web site, blog or product attached. I mean, people enter and exist web businesses all day, if someone is selling their business/project on Flippa or other related sites, then it could be a good chance for you to get a list too

That means the business is exclusively sold to you, I am not talking on PLR packages or a “replicate” business

Think in perspective, get the whole story about something before making assumptions or decisions… and avoid putting a label on a specific strategy or concept just because that’s all you know about it.

(In depth) research is required in everything we do, right?

Yes, getting email addresses is so hard.

I am looking to find the email addresses of online computer stores to sell them my new products.

Many of these companies, especially the big ones, do not list any email addresses, or often even phone numbers !

Actually, this problem could have been avoided if they would have cleaned the list. Some companies do it really cheap. Just do a web search of “deep clean email lists” and you’ll find the ones that will clean the hard bounces before you mail.

I should be lucky to found this post on first page google with keyword “buy email lists online”. I am going to buy email lists, but luckily, i found the answer.
But, let met tell a bit of my story. I’ve ran an online store before, and got 11k email list of customers, but it’s on my database. And I’ve lost the business, and start to be an Internet Marketer. Can I input it on my Aweber?

Waiting for answer,
Thanks Justin!

Really good article. When you start out it’s definitely tempting to buy an email list, but I’m glad that I didn’t do it with my business. I hate when I receive an unsolicited email from a company that I’m not familiar with. I imagine that most people probably feel the same way.

I disagree to an extent.
Buying Email lists is like buying anything else.

1. Make sure they are Opt In as advertised.
2. Make sure they are Targeted
3. Make sure the Emails are Valid.

Many Email Marketers just shoot from the hip. That is what gets people into trouble.
I always Validate the Email Data first on all my lists, get all the data. You have to wash your email contacts first so you are compliant with Can Spam (#1) as well as to avoid IP Bans, blacklisting, bounce backs.

Once you have a Clean list then follow through with a Can Spam Compliant Email.

I didn’t purchase a list, but am given access on a monthly basis to new people who want to hear from suppliers. In this case, the company that provides me with the details is a wedding directory where brides are looking for people to get in touch with them.

Specifically, I’m a photographer and only targeting the people who have not yet booked their photog yet, which is included in the given info.

As the leads per month are around the 350 mark I find it’s just as easy to email each person individually.

What are your thoughts on this and how could it affect my business?

I am a scientist. My e-mail has been drawn from publicly-available sites related to science. My name and e-mail is being sold as part of a 7 Million+ e-mail list to biomedical companies and anyone who wants to buy targeted lists. I NEVER gave permission to use my name and e-mail and in fact requested that my name be removed. The company continues to make profits by selling my name + 6.999 million others. I don’t care what country you are from, this is UNETHICAL and ILLEGAL (in my eyes). Of course, who as the money to try and persecute such crooks? Worse yet, if I live in South Africa and the company is selling from India, how can US laws affect or cover me? These guys work across transnational borders because they know that they can operate across international borders online, without any regulation (unless they operate from the US, perhaps). So no fear, no penalties, no recrimination, no fines, just sickening profits from unjust and unfair and illegal marketing methods. Because frauds all abuse innocents.

I think it can be easy to fall in the trap of calling “purchasing a list” and “list rental” synonymous. List rental is a widely accepted marketing tactic.

Unfortunately, there are individuals off in who-knows-where selling worthless databases containing hundreds of thousands of outdated contacts for next to nothing. Not only is this shady and immoral, but it is creating a blanketing negative stereotype of the data industry.

If a marketer does their research to find companies with a proven track record instead of whoever is cheapest, they will find there are quality, well-meaning companies out there.

This is one of the most interesting threads I have seen in a long time. It discusses a challenge that many of our customers face when trying to identify and increase their customer base. Whilst purchasing lists may reap rewards, the reality is that you just don’t know the quality of the email addresses you are obtaining.

Deliverability of Emails comes down to a number of core areas:

1. Technology
– Sending Infrastructure, Spam Filters, Authentication
2. Best Practices and Reputation
– Dedicated IP Addresses, IP Warming Strategies
3. Data Management, Relevance, Optimization, Engagement
– Daily monitoring of Blacklists, SenderScore and blocking
4. Legal Compliance
5. Timeliness and Relevance of Communications
– Targeting at best day of week, time of day & segmentation/ AB Testing

Even with this structure in place to maximise deliverability of the emails that you send, none of this matters if the email addresses that you have purchased are of low quality or their sourcing questionable.

Building a list of valid email addresses is definitely the best way to ensure quality, but it takes time. Historically this has been difficult to achieve, but nowadays new channels make it easier to build prospect pools or identify fresh data to introduce to your customer database.

Take Social, you can leverage Social channels such as Facebook and Twitter to deploy campaigns (you no longer have to be a coded / programmer), there are wizard-based tools for doing this to create Apps that are publishing directly to these channels. When people respond to your App (e.g. Photo Contest, Refer-A-Friend for incentive, etc.) they opt-in to direct communications and provide an email address and address (or whatever it is you customise that you wish to capture). These people are then immediately available for your direct marketing campaigns.

Benefits of this include:

1. The information volunteered is more likely to be current (how often do you update / change or use multiple personal email addresses?)
2. The information contained is captured in a consistent form which you have control over – easier to integrate back into your customer database or tie to existing customers leveraging social channels (did you know that before? doubtful)
3. The information captured provides all the legal governance – i.e. they are opting in to direct communications channels – you offer this as part of the terms and conditions of sign up / contest entry
4. The people responding are showing an active interest in your brand by participating in the campaign – this is key as they are already a “warm” instead of “cold” list prospect
5. The data is fresh, in other words its not sat on a database for 18 months plus and the email address is more likely to be current.

Now take these steps to capture data, find a reputable Email Service Provider that covers the deliverability steps above and you have taken steps towards a successful email campaign.

Used and tried, never again. Best way is with your own contacts not from a paid for database in my opinion. Most people now see as spam and delete with opening therefore a huge waste of money and resources.