Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am considering purchasing email lists to drive more traffic to my business website. I wanted to check if any of you here have any experiences or advise to share. Thanks!

Be sure you ask (and verify) the source of the names on the mailing list you purchase. There are a number of businesses that run websites for the sole purpose of recruiting people to open eMails, and they pay them a fraction of a cent for each eMail they open.

What this means to you as a business owner is that the mailing list your message is sent to will tend to open the message, click through the link to your website, and then bounce immediately off of your site. If you measure success as total traffic, these types of lists will deliver a success. If however, you are trying to draw qualified, interested people to your site, then this will not be a successful route for you.

I have also had experience with using a mailing list from a major magazine that had less than expected results. Contact me privately if you'd like more details on that.

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

PS: We posted a blog entry yesterday that addresses eMail marketing...http://blog.launchx.com/2009/09/20/email-marketing-the-good-the-bad-and-the-utterly-criminal/ 

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

before puchasing check all email these are working or not. bacause many email are valid aftersome time.

If you want web mail list then i have a huge collection og web mails. please PM me ASAP.

Ruksana---My experience is that purchased email lists are usually very low quality and/or totally obsolete by the time you get them. Also, sending out unsolicited emails may be interpreted as spam and get you banned from browsers and so forth.  I belive the best way to proceed is to get your own opt in email list, and utilize that.  Yes, that is easier said than done--I'm working on that challenge myself as we speak--but that seems to be the way to go.  The good part I guess is:  if it were easy, everybody would do it.

Email marketing, when done correctly and legally, is a great way to market your products and services.

Before engaging in Email marketing, you obviously need a current and valid email list of your target population. It's normally advisable to seek a professional contact list prospector rather that buying lists that may be years old or those that have been sold over and over and the potential clients has learned to delete unknown mailings on sight.

In preparation of lists, most of the experts have access to top directories that periodically validate these addresses. They also use business to business sites, websites and membership organizations. Many will call to confirm that the addresses are valid or use email verification software.

These fresh lists cost as little as 20 cents for every valid contact complete with phone numbers and address details. For emails only, you may pay as little as 5 cents per email.

These professionals also offer additional emailing sending services for as little as $50 to send as many as 2000 emails.

We can refer you to some of these professionals.

May I suggest placing an ad in an already established ezine in the same market as your target market. You can use a directory of ezines to find a newsletter with a large list within your target market then contact the owner and place your ad. Depending on your budget you can place ads in multiple ezines. When done right ezine advertising is very effective.

Please be careful when buying email lists. Most of the guys selling them acquire emails illegally or just get it off the internet and sell to you. Many users receiving the emails may complain about spam.

Thanks for the information!