Is buying an email list a good idea ?

       One of the simplest forms of marketing for B2B companies is having a defined email marketing campaign, and this means either collating an email list or buying an email list. Email campaigns are one of the more preferred and efficient ways of reaching your customer because it is fast and it is direct. So, does buying an email list make sense? I mean, getting an email list of potential clients does open up a huge and immediate marketing opportunity for you. But can it only be beneficial or are there any downsides to this? An email list which is bought is primarily only cold leads, so does it make sense sending them all an email without them knowing anything about you or what you have to offer? Well, lets unravel the pros and cons of buying an email list. To begin with let us look at the positive side of procuring an email list and from thereon let us figure out the cons.

The Pros of Buying an Email List

       One thing we all have to agree about is that email lists are excellent provided they have accurate and valid contacts. This is only possible if you are getting them from a credible database provider. A targeted email list is a gold mine and can add a zing to your marketing efforts and lead generation capabilities. So let us look at the top reasons for buying an email list

      1. Grow your reach exponentially and scale your sales: Primary advantage of buying an email list – access to reach a bigger audience. The math is very simple, the more potential customers you reach, higher the chances of winning new business. But, getting a good email list is not enough, you need to run a tight email campaign by focusing on getting the best open rates, and using the right tools to run your campaign.

      2. Enhance your lead generation capabilities: Your B2B audience is not aware of you, and an email list can give you a direct line of communication with them. These cold leads can become warm opt-in contacts, which can be further funneled down to sales channels for conversion. If they are on the fence leads, you can always nurture them through follow up campaigns and a planned marketing strategy to keep your potential prospects engaged.

      3. Scale your return on investment: Imagine, the kind of money you would have to spend on conventional marketing plans? Such as paid advertising digital or offline and or having a team of sales professionals who do cold calls. Not only does this process have no guarantees of conversions, but it also costs a lot. In comparison, if you are buying an email list from a trusted email database provider, you get an accurate list of prospective B2B clients, who you can get in touch with at a fraction of the cost. This means, you save time and you are saving money, money which can be allocated to other areas of your business.

      4. Augment your customer acquisition efficacy: Once you have warmed up your email list, you have a niche group of prospects who are interested in what you have to offer. Not only will this improve your ROI as mentioned earlier, it also paces up your lead generation as well as profit generation. With a quality email list, you can gain new business and keep them engaged and loyal for long term business outcomes.

      5. Improve productivity & resource activity: Conventionally, you could allocate man power to do lead generation, but it can be people intensive and time consuming. Also, it impacts your marketing timelines. So, a purchased email list is a great subsidiary to freeing up your human resources and accelerating your lead generation capabilities

      So, these are some of the most important advantages of buying an email list. It helps you generate leads faster and it helps you scale your business to the next level. However, it is important that you are buying this email database from a reputed database service provider.

      Now, let us look at some of the key disadvantages or cons of buying an email list for business.

The Cons of Buying an Email List

      1. Infringement of data privacy: A lot of database service providers, claim guaranteed results, but you should be wary of such claims, while reputed and trusted email database providers follow struct data protection and privacy policies, a lot of vendors lack authenticity. So, it is important to understand who you are buying your email lists from, check if they have solid understanding of GDPR and other data protection requirements. Further, once you do buy the email list, it is important to follow proper email etiquette too. So, focus on that as well.

      2. Ending up in the junk folder: Again, illegally sourced email lists are dangerous. If you reach out to such email lists, chances are you will face a lack of engagement and because your prospective audience is receiving unwanted emails, you either will end up in spam or will be marked as spam. So, beware of this and when you do purchase a valid email list from a trusted email data base provider, run a clean email campaign which follows all the rules of effective email strategies. Keep your subject lines relevant, keep your email content concise and focus on improving your open rates.

      3. The email list is not exclusive: One of the most common disadvantages of buying an email list is that you don’t have any exclusive rights to the list itself. Database companies which usually sell such lists make money by selling the same email lists to multiple clients. Hence, engage with email database providers who can help you with lead generation and providing you with a customized email list, which is to a large extent tailor made for your requirements. So, never just buy an email list just off the internet without quantifying the quality and authenticity of the service provider.

      4. Can impact your brand reputation: You run a marketing campaign essentially to build brand awareness and to increase your brand exposure, so if you are reaching out to a random email list bought from an equally random email list provider, who is not following data privacy laws and sourcing the leads illegally, then as a brand you stand to lose a lot. From getting marked as spam to bad reviews to getting your IP black listed, there are one too many downsides which can adversely impact your brand reputation. Combat this by building a custom email list with your email database provider.

      5. Quality of the list can’t be trusted: As mentioned earlier, not all email list vendors are legally collating their data, hence there is no guarantee that the list you are buying is complete, up to date, or legally harvested. So, instead of depending on cheap vendors, research for highly reviewed and reputed email list vendors and work with them.

In conclusion

      Finally, we have understood that as much as email marketing is critical for your B2B business, having an email list to run an effective campaign can be complicated. Although, manually building an email list is time consuming, just buying an email list without validating your email list provider can be risky. Hopefully you have gained some critical insights in these pros and cons series and you will be a lot more pragmatic with your email database screening process. If you believe in building a high-quality email list of targeted B2B audience, then you can reach out to us, we will help you in setting up a cost-effective email marketing and lead generation strategy.