If you’re thinking of renting an email list, you want to understand what you’re getting yourself into, so you can decide if it’s really something that’s going to benefit you.
Step One is to understand the difference between buying an email list and renting an email list.
Buying an email list means that you pay money, someone sends you a list of names and then you send an email to each person on the list. The problem is, that you can get in trouble.
Even if this is an opt-in list and people gave permission to send them email, they didn’t giveyou permission to send them emails. They gave it to someone else.
When you rent an email list, you don’t get the actual list. You only pay for the right to have the list owner send your message to the list they own. They are sending the message, not you and they have permission to send emails to everyone on that list.
If the list owner is well respected, this can be a very effective way to get your message out there to a receptive audience. The key is to know who that audience is and to be sure that they are the people you want to reach.
You want to know how the list owner compiled the list and why people actually read the emails.
It is not cheap to rent a good email list and so you want to target your message to a specific market and then find a list that targets people in that market and commands their attention.
For example, if you are trying to sell garden equipment, then obviously you want to rent a list geared to gardening enthusiasts, but not all lists are equal.
If you rent a list from someone who gets people to opt-in just by offering them free gifts, you may be wasting money.
Those people have agreed to receive emails, but that doesn’t mean that they have any interest in reading those emails, or even opening them.
But if the list belongs to a respected gardening expert who gives advice, then those emails will probably be opened, read and paid attention to.
That’s the difference between an investment that is wasted and one that should pay off handsomely.
If you are really to take advantage of email list rental, you can’t just make it a one-shot deal. You will have to send several messages, not just one, if you want to get their attention.
You have to know your target audience and know what kind of information they are interested in.
Then you have to give it to them in a way that will eventually convince them to try your product or service, because they feel that they know you and trust you.
That way your investment in renting email lists will generate a decent ROI.