Email marketing starts with building a list, buying your list is the most effective way right? No it is not and please do not buy a list! There are much better ways to build your email marketing list than buying an email marketing list.

Buying an email marketing list can cause more harm than good.

Just remember that good email lists are NOT for sales so if you do purchase a list, these subscribers have not subscribed or double opted in to receive your content and they may not be interested in receiving information from your business or yourself.  Sure you may score 1 or 2 purchases from that list but is it worth harming your brand to be known as a spammer for the sake of those two sales.  Don’t forget that most people are pretty savvy now and they quite often unsubscribe and flag your content as spam which can then halt your email marketing program.

Consider this when you open up your email and you are getting the latest news from businesses that you are subscribed too you are interested enough to take the next step and click on the links to be really engaged with what they are saying. When you get an email from a business that is not familiar for a product or service that you are not interested in how do you handle it? You unsubscribe, flag them as a spammer and then delete it.  Well I do anyway!

If you want to be looked at as one of “those” companies that send out unsolicited information than by all means go ahead and buy the list but you should know that in most cases the consumer is irritated by receiving unsolicited information. As a matter of fact it is a huge waste of time and there is a very good chance that you will lose leads instead of gaining leads.

The right way

Does it take longer to build your email marketing list on your own? Yes of course it does but it really comes down to quality over quantity. What is the point of having a list with 5000 names and only 3 of them are interested in your business? List building can take a little while but it is well worth the effort. You will build a list of interested and engaged subscribers which means you have a much better chance of building a lasting relationship with customers that are interested in your products or services.

There are many ways to build a list and we have discussed some listed in our recent post ‘Using Incentives to Engage Subscribers‘ which are listed below:

• Ebook
• Videos
• Discounts/Specials
• Events
• Membership
• Book a free consultation

It may take you a little while longer to build an engaged list but your new customers and profit margin will appreciate the effort!