Email marketing is a great way to target potential customers and helps you gain exposure. While emailing your list can help you grow, purchasing lists can hurt your brand and make your emails less effective.
Email marketing isn’t like radio or TV ads paid for by the audience’s participation. Customers must opt-in to receive your messages before they ever see them in their inboxes, so not all of the people on purchased lists will want to hear from you.
Disadvantages of Purchasing Lists
Here are some reasons you should not buy a list for email marketing.
When you purchase a list, there’s no guarantee that it comes with permission from each person on the list to receive these types of messages from businesses like yours—or any at all.
It also makes it difficult to monitor where unsubscribe requests come from and blacklist those domains so your emails can’t go there anymore.
When you buy a list, the people on it probably chose not to hear from you—and that’s something that can backfire if you decide to start emailing them.
You might see an increase in your subscriber numbers, but it’ll be followed by unsubscribes because these contacts never chose to receive your emails in the first place!
If you aren’t sure who will want to open your emails once they get into inboxes, why risk annoying potential customers? Ensure that opt-ins are collected for every possible contact or buyer persona before adding people onto lists through forms available via email marketing services.
FAQs About Email Marketing
As reported by Statista, the global email marketing market will reach $17.9 billion by 2027. Here are some top FAQs about this marketing strategy.
What Is the Difference Between a Purchased List and An Opted-In List?
A purchased list consists of people who have no preexisting relationship with your business. In contrast, opted-in lists consist of contacts who have been permitted to receive messages from you and your brand.
These contacts may have signed up through forms on your website or via third-party email providers like those provided by email marketing services.
When Is It Appropriate to Buy a List?
It is never appropriate to buy a list. Opt-in lists are the only way to ensure that your messages are sent to people who want to receive them.
What Are the Risks Involved with Buying a List?
When you buy a list, you run the risk of annoying potential customers who never asked to hear from you in the first place. Hence, you should not buy a list.
Additionally, there’s no guarantee that everyone on the list has given permission to receive messages from businesses like yours. It can lead to unsubscribe requests and negative feedback from people who feel spammed.
Why Should You Care If Your Emails End Up in Someone’s Spam Folder?
If your emails consistently end up in recipients’ spam folders, it could signify that your content is not relevant to them or that you are not following email marketing best practices.
Either way, it’s terrible for your brand and could lead to people unsubscribing from your list.
How Can You Ensure Your Emails Reach Their Intended Recipients?
You must ensure your content is relevant to your audience and follow email marketing best practices.
It will help ensure that your emails reach their intended recipients without ending up in spam folders.
What are Some Email Marketing Best Practices You Should Follow?
Some email marketing best practices to follow include creating relevant content, sending informative (not promotional) messages, testing different subject lines and types of content, and tracking the success of your campaigns. For more tips, check out our guide to email marketing.
What Should You Do If Someone Unsubscribes from Your Emails?
If you notice that someone has unsubscribed, consider asking them why they unsubscribed and if their needs would be better served by another method of communication.
If there’s any way you can meet their needs, you could ask them to resubscribe or recommend that they sign up for another channel like your blog.
How Can You Keep Track of The Things Your Contacts Are Interested In?
You could consider keeping track of your contacts’ interests by creating buyer personas and tracking engagement data across different channels.
You could also look at your database to see if you have any insights into what content your contacts are most likely to engage with—and use this when planning new email campaigns.
When Should You Send Promotional Versus Informational Messages?
It would help if you tried to send more informational messages than promotional messages, when possible, especially when beginning outreach efforts or establishing initial rapport with someone new.
If you have existing relationships with people on your list, then sending more promotional messages is usually okay if they’re relevant and valuable to your contacts.
However, if someone has opted in and you’re sending messages that they don’t find helpful or relevant, they may unsubscribe from your email list or mark your messages as spam.
That’s why it’s crucial to send valuable and relevant messages so people will continue reading them.
