The Road To Disaster: Buying Leads
We’ve all seen the companies offering large quantities of email addresses for low low prices, but what are you really getting for your money? Sure, you can add a lot of e-mail addresses to your list, but is it worth it? There are some serious problems with buying e-mail addresses in bulk that you should consider before making that purchase.
The first thing to remember is that not everyone is getting their e-mail addresses in a legitimate way. Some of the less honest companies are getting their addresses through dubious means, like breaking into people’s e-mail accounts, and downloading all their contacts, or by gaining access to someone else’s list. If you decide to buy leads, and those leads were acquired through dubious means, it’s a pretty safe bet that any mail you send to those leads will get flagged as spam.
Let’s just assume that the e-mail addresses were gathered in a legitimate, legal way. You still have to worry about the quality of the leads. Unless you offer a product or service that is universally needed or wanted, you are going to wind up with a lot of new leads that just don’t care about your niche. Chances are the e-mail addresses you’re buying came from a wide variety of sources, and contain a wide variety of consumers. They won’t necessarily be interested in your products or services.
If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance you know how much effort goes into building up your brand. If you buy leads for your list, and wind up sending out e-mails to people that just don’t care about whatever you’re offering, you run the risk of damaging your brand. If your newly purchased subscribers get what they feel to be too many e-mails from you, they will come to think of your company as a spammer. Once that negative image is created in a person’s mind, it’s very hard to convince them they have the wrong idea about your company.
With the potential to get flagged as spam, the inability to target your audience, and the risk of damaging your brand, buying leads just isn’t worth the risks. It might work out for you if you have a truly ubiquitous product, but chances are you’re just going to make trouble for yourself by buying leads.
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