Is visitor information worth anything?

[tomequin]

If a person had complete contact information on 2000 landscapers, would that information be of any value to someplace like Sears, a lawn mower maker, etc.? If it was, where would you start. Is there a place niche sites can sell the information the visitor base has submitted?

[tomequin]

Close to 3 days and not a single reply. Did I ask the question wrong? Let's try again in a different way.
If a person had complete contact information about 1500 surfers. The information includes address, phone, email, number of years surfing and the types/ models of surf boards they use and the type of waves the surfer likes and dislikes. Would that information be of any value to surf board makers, surfing accessory dealers or maybe board wax companies? I know the answer must be YES. But how would you market that information without contacting each company independently? Or is that the only option?
All information would have been submitted by the surfer for a mailing list, site contest, etc.
Any help to be offered?
Thanks

[Rosalind]

If you're going to sell that kind of information, do you disclose this in your privacy policy? Selling email addresses encourages spamming. So you may be able to sell it, but the email addresses won't be of much use to a decent company who doesn't want to be accused of spamming.

The other problem is that people frequently enter inaccurate information into web forms and on competitions. People like their privacy, and it's also a fairly small sample. You have to balance the price you are likely to get with the probable damage to your reputation if you sell this on and it's misused.

[tomequin]

No....I don't want to spam anybody. I want to make use of the contact information my visitor base has supplied me. I know it's 95% valid because of my market and the high rate of newsletters opened and clicked on. What I'm curious about is the idea of approaching a company directly about an email campaign through a newsletter or something else. The "pitch" would come from my email address only. I want to use my email because I feel it would ensure a higher opening rate of the email and to be honest, I don't want to sell my stuff. I just want to use it.
So...If I had contact information on 2000 self employed landscapers plus contact information on 5000 more in related fields. Gardeners, Groundskeepers, Plant sales people, Nursery workers, ect.. How would I approach Ajax Lawn Mower Making Company, Yogi's Garden Sheers, Bobs' Fertalizer, Freds Chainsaw Company and work a deal.
I understand that I would have to contact the marketing department for the company. But what kind of money would I ask for. $50.00? $500.00? $5.00? Or would it be better to work out a deal on people clicking on something? What about doing it only on commission?
Anybody have any experience with something like this? What about ideas on where to start?

[johnnie]

Be very cautious doing this. If you sell people's information, you must include it in your privacy policy of some sort. You might get sued if you just sell people's personalia.

[tomequin]

Cautious about what? I don't see anything wrong with what I want to do. One person thinks I want to spam the world the other thinks I want to sell my information to the highest bidder.
It's almost like everybody on this forum feels that pushing CJ and AS is the best you can do with your website. That's so sad.
What would be the problem with me contacting a lawn mower manufacturer and working out an advertising campaign with them aimed at my visitor base? My email address would send the "pitch" once and the contact information would stay with me. For some silly reason I thought that was called direct marketing.
Thanks again. But I still want a starting point.

[andla]

Have you tried asking surveys companies?
Maybe remove the e-mail information but keep the other statistical information.

/Andla

[Essex_boy]

Spamming is a hot topic at the moment which is why your getting plenty of comments relating to it. No one here is accusing you of anything just politely mentioning a few possible problems.

Its going to be very hard to put a value on thiskind of information - back in teh late '90s a well known direct marketing firm gave me a price of 28p per targeted customer I wanted to approach.

The price was a 1p under the price of a first class stamp and it was a non exclusive one shot mailing to boot.

so on the basis of what your saying here I guess your entire mailing list amybe worth £300 - £500 depending on age of the list etc etc