Reliable Mailing List

[storm33229]

I need to purchase a lot of very specific emails from a reliable source. How? Where? etc. I'm currently searching google but I wanted to see if any insight could be found here.

Thanks

[dking]

This sort of thing is illegal. Do not do it.

Here in the state of Washington at least, we have a law against email solicitation. The interesting thing about it is that the email in question simply has to be owned by somebody in Washington state for the law to apply, so ISP's and large companies are moving server farms here so that all there users re technically at a Washington resident owned email address. This includes Yahoo and Google, who both have a small but significant presence here due to MSFT being in Redmond, WA.

Trust me, I work with computers. Besides you do not want to piss off your customers by spamming them anyway; Just let them OPT-IN and ALWAYS give them the Option of OPT-OUT.. or you may find yourself in the middle of an expensive lawsuit or have criminal charges filed against you.

Google for "spammer jailed".

[storm33229]

This sort of thing is illegal. Do not do it.

Here in the state of Washington at least, we have a law against email solicitation. The interesting thing about it is that the email in question simply has to be owned by somebody in Washington state for the law to apply, so ISP's and large companies are moving server farms here so that all there users re technically at a Washington resident owned email address. This includes Yahoo and Google, who both have a small but significant presence here due to MSFT being in Redmond, WA.

Trust me, I work with computers. Besides you do not want to piss off your customers by spamming them anyway; Just let them OPT-IN and ALWAYS give them the Option of OPT-OUT.. or you may find yourself in the middle of an expensive lawsuit or have criminal charges filed against you.

Google for "spammer jailed".
When I said very specific I meant other small service based business owners. Realestate agents, Mortgage Brokers, etc.

edit: googled "spammer jailed" if you look at the first link, the guy didn't seem to be arrested for simply spamming..he was threatening and what not. He was using it as a tool to destroy. Either way I'll talk to a lawyer and figure it out.

[TimW]

DKing,

And there are no services which offer truly opt-in email lists?

[italian_job]

hello there

if you want to build a solid, legal and responsive email list, use PPC and drive traffic to a squeeze page where you give a free ebook on the subject your PPC keyword targeted people are interested, in exchange for their email address.

(Double) Opt them in into a reliable service such as Aweber.

ciao


=======================

How to sell Information?

www.JamesBradley.info

======================

[storm33229]

Well actually the entire point was to avoid using PPC; I wanted to avoid monthly costs and just let the upfront costs dissipate over time. I do suppose that you're strategy may be low cost though. I'll look into it. Thanks.

[italian_job]

hi

i build my mailing lists using PPC, and in my experience if you offer you subscribers quality content, they WILL be responsive to your offers.

But nurture your list first. My rule is 80% content, 20% sales.

I have even recently submitted a survey to my list (using surveymonkey.com, a service that I definitely recommend), and I was pleasantly surprised by what my list had to say about my emails and service to them.

PS: master the art of copyWriting. Again, building a list for free that is not responsive will do very little to your business.

ciao

[badhank]

When I said very specific I meant other small service based business owners. Realestate agents, Mortgage Brokers, etc.


Well, specific or not, if they didnt ask for it and you dont have permission, its still spam...

But then again do whatever you feel is the best to do. I would suggest listening to italian_job as he(she ? i dont know) always seems to have some very street-smart advice on getting things done with marketing.

[storm33229]

Just to throw out an update, I got some quotes on buying emails:
1.45 million total emails costs $35,375
.01% of 1.45 million = 1,450 clients
1450 * 50 = 870k annually.

I'm looking into only buying 3k emails 1k from each group and seeing how they perform and then possibly expanding. But that's a hell of a return.

2459% ROI in 1 year, and its a one time payment so it grows every year.

[TimW]

I certainly understand the frustration in trying to get your message out there to those who may have an interest in buying. As an Internet retailer, that's what I live for. However, you might consider how you go about it from the standpoint of one of the recipients.

Assume that you were/are on the receiving end of an email you plan to send. Would you be interested, or would you delete the message out-of-hand, perhaps even reporting it to the ISP as Spam? (Be honest)

If it would hold no interest for you, what do you imagine the reaction would be from others? Think about how YOU would want to be contacted, as a customer, and use that as a guiding principle on contacting would-be customers.

In addition, when you start talking about thousands of email address as part of a list you buy, you are then (IMO) getting into the realm of email harvesters and, thus, likely in the area that the CAN-SPAM Act was created to address.

I would strongly suggest giving them hard questions on how they collect the names/addresses, if it's a opt-in, double opt-in, etc. If it's something like "Well, they went to website to sign up for a coupon, and the fine-print says they get on mailing list...", run away. You'll be branded a spammer, at best, and maybe fall under the CAN-SPAM provisions.

[lovinglife]

A few years back a former "business partner" (actually a realative's partner - I did joint business with them) did a trade out of a email lists (both had the same target market but offered different products/services). The original list was promised to be "good". The reality was an absolute nightmare.

First there were the nasty emails. Then there were all the ISPs deeming the company as spammers and blocking ALL emails (even to actual customers). The final blow was when the company hosting the website shut the site down without a word because of spam complaints. We woke up one morning and it was gone. The hosting company would not even talk to us (of course this company had also been chosen by the business parter and he had left the company shortly before this). No website. No email. It was about 3 days before we were back on line. Our customers freaked out. We dealt with getting un-blacklisted for months.

These days it is only building our own list with Aweber with double opt-in. We do not buy, rent or trade lists - period.

[storm33229]

I certainly understand the frustration in trying to get your message out there to those who may have an interest in buying. As an Internet retailer, that's what I live for. However, you might consider how you go about it from the standpoint of one of the recipients.

Assume that you were/are on the receiving end of an email you plan to send. Would you be interested, or would you delete the message out-of-hand, perhaps even reporting it to the ISP as Spam? (Be honest)

If it would hold no interest for you, what do you imagine the reaction would be from others? Think about how YOU would want to be contacted, as a customer, and use that as a guiding principle on contacting would-be customers.

In addition, when you start talking about thousands of email address as part of a list you buy, you are then (IMO) getting into the realm of email harvesters and, thus, likely in the area that the CAN-SPAM Act was created to address.

I would strongly suggest giving them hard questions on how they collect the names/addresses, if it's a opt-in, double opt-in, etc. If it's something like "Well, they went to website to sign up for a coupon, and the fine-print says they get on mailing list...", run away. You'll be branded a spammer, at best, and maybe fall under the CAN-SPAM provisions.
None of the emails were opt-in but they all comply with the CAN-SPAM act. Also I personally may flag the mail as spam on my filters to not see it again, but that's if ti was something totally irrelevant to any part of my life; however if it was something that was related to my own business and its growth then I may take a peak. However I would never take the time out of my day to go and report anything to my ISP. Waste of time; I'll let others do it for me.

But the point was that only 0.01% of the 1.45m would even respond. The others were the above described peoples who said "piss off".

[dking]

None of the emails were opt-in but they all comply with the CAN-SPAM act. Also I personally may flag the mail as spam on my filters to not see it again, but that's if ti was something totally irrelevant to any part of my life; however if it was something that was related to my own business and its growth then I may take a peak. However I would never take the time out of my day to go and report anything to my ISP. Waste of time; I'll let others do it for me.

But the point was that only 0.01% of the 1.45m would even respond. The others were the above described peoples who said "piss off".

So think of it this way: Only 0.01% would respond, but at least 37% would report you as a spammer. The other 62% or so would either never see your email due to spam filtering, or be angry and delete it.

The fact is no matter how you slice it, ts not worth your time to market to people who do not want to be marketed to, and I promise you if I get a email I consider spam, the first thing I do is contact my lawyer and see if I can make some easy money by suing the spammer. Usually, I can, and do. I know lots of people who do the same, or otherwise have no ethical problem with hunting them down and reporting them to the authorities.

[storm33229]

So think of it this way: Only 0.01% would respond, but at least 37% would report you as a spammer. The other 62% or so would either never see your email due to spam filtering, or be angry and delete it.

The fact is no matter how you slice it, ts not worth your time to market to people who do not want to be marketed to, and I promise you if I get a email I consider spam, the first thing I do is contact my lawyer and see if I can make some easy money by suing the spammer. Usually, I can, and do. I know lots of people who do the same, or otherwise have no ethical problem with hunting them down and reporting them to the authorities.
What defines spam? Last I checked lead generation is not illegal.

[badhank]

What defines spam? Last I checked lead generation is not illegal.
Well are you writing a letter to a specific person, or are you giving everyone the same sales pitch?
You can certainly contact people in hopes of a conversation, but if its "hello friend, you may be interested in high quality reproduction watches and sunglasses" then its spam

[dking]

How you generate it can be. SPAM can be easily defined as unwanted communication for the express or eventual purpose to generate a sale, donation, or profit. So if you send out email of any type about a product or service that they did not explicitly request, its spam and thats illegal.

Here is a good resource on the origins of spam and how it was commonly handled; It also includes some guidelines and is hosted on a national standards body's website so it should be considered hard data; but it is older and wa written before the laws making spamming illegal where passed.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2635.txt

[storm33229]

How you generate it can be. SPAM can be easily defined as unwanted communication for the express or eventual purpose to generate a sale, donation, or profit. So if you send out email of any type about a product or service that they did not explicitly request, its spam and thats illegal.

Here is a good resource on the origins of spam and how it was commonly handled; It also includes some guidelines and is hosted on a national standards body's website so it should be considered hard data; but it is older and wa written before the laws making spamming illegal where passed.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2635.txt
http://www.allmediainc.com/email-lists.html
CAN-SPAM
CAN-SPAM compliance creates customer trust, avoids costly fines and allows the maximum number of emails to make it to their intended recipients. AllMedia Inc. follows all of the CAN-SPAM legislation closely and will ensure your email adheres to the guidelines for acceptable email marketing according to the CAN-SPAM regulations. By adhering to the law, you will make your recipients more willing to read your emails and buy your products because they know their email is coming from a legitimate source.
Maybe they're lying, you tell me.

[dking]

Sounds like it.

[storm33229]

Sounds like it.
It sounds like they're lying? If so where do you pick up on that? Obviously it IS possible to do email marketing just so long as the list IS can-spam compliant. So if the list I receive is truly can-spam compliant then I don't see a reason as to why I shouldn't do it.

I understand that building my own list of emails may be more sales-effective but it would certainly not be neither time-effective nor time-efficient.

If they're lying and you can prove that they're lying then I'm all ears, otherwise there's no reason to just assume anything. Yes a law exists that says spam is illegal, but what I will be doing will not only look a lot less like spam but also will be complying with that law.

[TimW]

What's he's talking about doesn't appear to violate the CAN-SPAM Act. I think that most "normal" Internet users would consider it spam, but legally it doesn't appear so. Research the criteria of the CAN-SPAM act...it's pretty specific.

[storm33229]

What's he's talking about doesn't appear to violate the CAN-SPAM Act. I think that most "normal" Internet users would consider it spam, but legally it doesn't appear so. Research the criteria of the CAN-SPAM act...it's pretty specific.
Thank you! Hahah. I guess at the end of the day what I'm trying to say is:
1. It's legal, so I can't get sued.
2. I'm going to do a lot of work to make sure that the emails don't look or read like spam.

[TimW]

1. It's legal, so I can't get sued.

I would not make this assumption. Legality and vulnerability to being sued are not mutually exclusive. See McDonald's and hot coffee, or any number of self-defense cases for examples.

[storm33229]

I would not make this assumption. Legality and vulnerability to being sued are not mutually exclusive. See McDonald's and hot coffee, or any number of self-defense cases for examples.
Yes I suppose you're right, I would also be saying something towards the bottom giving the option to completely opt-out of the list and very deeply apologize for the inconvenience.