Email mailing lists- local?

[Atomic Ads]

Where's the best place to source business email addresses?

I'm looking for Glasgow and surrounding areas. Planning on an email campaign, although I'm not really convinced in email's merits. Any advice much appreciated

 

[Mike Lewis]

Before you start looking for email lists, you should ask yourself if you really want to go down that route.

You might not be aware of this, but sending out unsolicited emails to people that you have no business relationship with is generally considered unprofressional and antisocial. In some countries, it's illegal. It's not something that a respectable company should do.

Even if the recipient is an existing customer, you should not send unsolicited marketing messages unless the customer has explicitly opted in to receive such messages from you. Obviously, this won't be the case if you purchase a list.

Mike

 

[Atomic Ads]

That's what I meant by it's merits, I know it's frowned upon by many and has a poor response rate but if it costs next to nothing is there any real harm done...?

Is it really any different to leafleting for example?

I've a few things planned of which this was to be one but I don't want to pay for email addresses so it's shelved for the moment.

Thanks

 

[BioOutsource]

To be honest i don't think email marketing really work now. Well it depends upon your business as well. But try looking for other sources of reaching your potential customers. If you run a email marketing campaign through BOUGHT list, more then 20% will bounce, more then 40% will go to spam, and you'll hardly have open rate of less then 3%.
Spend your money more wisely and look for alternate ways to attend your cutomers.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

I disagree with Bio Outsource I think email marketing is still huge. There is still massive value in these lists provided you've built them yourself. We consistently get open rates in excess of 50% when we send out our emails but it's becuase they are very tightly targetted. I wouldn't for one second suggest you go and buy a list, i've been there and the quality was very poor.

I would certainly advocate you start to build your own list. Look at sites like Mailchimp who will allow you to build a fairly sizeable list for free. The rules on B2B emails aren't as strict as B2C and as far as I'm led to believe as long as you offer a way for people to easily unsubcribe then you can send businesses an email. I think that it's still important though that you only target businesses where you are sure that they can utilise what you offer otherwise i think it is just spam.

 

[Mike Lewis]

B arry,

Sorry but I have to disagree. Spam is spam, regardless of whether you've built the list yourself or purchased it from a vendor. And just because you allow the recipient to opt out, that doesn't make it any less objectionable. (Why should I have to go to the trouble of opting out of something I never asked for in the first place.)

The only time that email mailshots are acceptable is if the recipients are existing customers (or employees, suppliers, whatever),and then only if the subject of the email is relevant to them.

Put another way, when was the last time you purchased a product as a result of an unsolicited email from someone you don't know?

Mike

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Mike,

I've built an email list via SBF and SBB that's fully opted in. This is now in excess of 3000 subscribers at last count. I email to this list digests of new posts on both the sites that I THINK these people will find interesting. Would you call that spam?

I actually dont see any problem in a B2B context of sending an unsolicited email to a potential client who could utilise your services as long as it's done sincerely. It's just the same surely as sending a piece of direct mail, asking to connect on LinkedIn or even following someone on Twitter. It's all unsolicited and you're giving people a chance to see what you're all about and then decide whether they want to take things further.

I receive all these different tpe of contact requests on a daily basis and I make decisions as to what ones I accept and what ones I dont. If I get an email that is unsolicited and spammy I will report it as spam and look for a way to unsubscribe but on the flip side i've got many great business relationships just now that started from an unsolicited email.

 

[Atomic Ads]

I actually dont see any problem in a B2B context of sending an unsolicited email to a potential client who could utilise your services as long as it's done sincerely. It's just the same surely as sending a piece of direct mail, asking to connect on LinkedIn or even following someone on Twitter. It's all unsolicited and you're giving people a chance to see what you're all about and then decide whether they want to take things further.

That's pretty much how I see it.

When you think about it every contact ever made is unsolicited initially, by one party or the other. Flyering, door to door sales, cold calling, charity muggers etc all are and businesses use them every day (albeit with some resistance). Spam definitely gets a bad rep but I think that's more to do with the Viagra and porn stuff than legitimate and managed approaches.

I'll have a look at Mailchimp.

 

[Mike Lewis]

I've built an email list via SBF and SBB that's fully opted in. This is now in excess of 3000 subscribers at last count. I email to this list digests of new posts on both the sites that I THINK these people will find interesting. Would you call that spam?

No. That's not spam, precisely because the subscribers have an existing relationship with you, and they have explicitly opted in to receive the type of message that you are sending. It's not the same as building a list of recipients who have had no dealings with you before and have possibly never even heard of your company.

By the way, the fact that there are 3,000 subscribers on your list is not really relevant. My argument would apply equally if there were 300 or 30,000.

I actually dont see any problem in a B2B context of sending an unsolicited email to a potential client who could utilise your services as long as it's done sincerely.

Well, it's you who is making the decision about whether the recipient is a potential client, and whether he can use your services - and of course you will only ever do it sincerely. I agree that it's nowhere near as bad as sending out millions of messages to random email addresses. But it's still spammy.

It's just the same surely as sending a piece of direct mail, ....

It's a funny thing. But people don't get so hot and bothered about traditional direct mail (the paper kind) as they do about email. I don't know why. You'd think they would prefer email spam than the paper kind, if only because it's less effort to hit the Delete button than it is to pick up a letter from the doormat and carry it to the recycling box.

Personally, I generally at least glance at most direct mail items before discarding them, and sometimes even read them right through, but I would rarely do that with an unsolicited email. I know it's not logical, but there you are.

Just my humble opinion, for what it's worth.

Mike

 

[BioOutsource]

Guys BUILDING your own list a totally different from BUYING one, what i was talking was people who buy list from some databases or third parties and most probably mostly are marked as spammed one way or other.
when i comes to building list, its a whole different world, people are actualy Subscribing on your site because they are interested in what you do, and therefore have high response rate.
May it was my understanding that i took email marketing as the former one, as i believe later type of email marketing is more of keeping intouch with potential customers but periodically updating them.

 

[stugster]

You know what's really funny? I hate tele-pests and spam, but it works.

We trialled sending out a spam email to about 100 businesses in the Edinburgh area last year. One of them converted to a paying client just a month or two ago.

The message wasn't just an advert, it was a request to fill out a questionnaire on what people perceive IT Support to do, how they do their IT Support, and what they'd like to get out of IT Support if they had it outsourced to a company. The email offered a field for them to fill their own email address in if they were interested in hearing more about the services we offered.

B2B email solicitation isn't illegal (I think),but B2C definitely is.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Guys BUILDING your own list a totally different from BUYING one,

True. But building a list from your existing customers , or by asking people to sign up for a service, for example to receive your newsletter, is totally different from scanning web pages and harvesting the addresses you see there. It's only that latter scenario that I am objecting too.

Mike

 

[shredder]

Anyone sends me unsolicited emails and I will refuse to do business with them. If I ever find out someone has sold a list with my name on it I will also refuse to deal with them. This is the only way to stop these pests cluttering up your inbox. It may cost the sender nothing but please don't assume it won't have a negative effect.

 

[bree82]

B arry,

Sorry but I have to disagree. Spam is spam, regardless of whether you've built the list yourself or purchased it from a vendor. And just because you allow the recipient to opt out, that doesn't make it any less objectionable. (Why should I have to go to the trouble of opting out of something I never asked for in the first place.)

The only time that email mailshots are acceptable is if the recipients are existing customers (or employees, suppliers, whatever),and then only if the subject of the email is relevant to them.

Put another way, when was the last time you purchased a product as a result of an unsolicited email from someone you don't know?

Mike

I agree with you, email marketing is still spam-like to me and I can't understand how it is still successful for people. I have tried it on a couple of occasions and it didn't net me any results at all.