Forum Moderators: skibum
Thank you
From my experience 99% of 'opt-in' lists are absolutely nothing of the sort. Apart from that, I have no desire to save him from a 'scam artist'
Finally, I know it is not your fault, so the obvious distaste in this response is not directed at you.
Try [dmoz.org...]
Also, thanks Mike. I'll look at the directory, but I'm still not sure how I tell who the "good" lists are (or should I say "not so bad"). Is there anything we can look for to know the list is legit?
I hate helping promote the spread of spam, but I think it is better than helping to promotie the Spam Companies.
So, to find the free lists: Perform some searches on Google, and I am sure that you will be able to find free email lists. Be creative with your search terms, and you should be able to find them.
keep in mind that the service provider you use might ban you for sending out so much spam. Also, if your clients phone or fax number is in the spam, be prepared for a barrage of abuse.
Once, several years ago, i tried a spam approach. It turned out awful. One guy flooded out fax number with garbage so that it used up all the paper that night and kept important faxes from coming. Many other people would call up, seemingly interested and proffesional, and then they would let loose with a barrage of abuse.
After a company goes to the expense of building such a list, they are highly unlikely to rent it and trash their own field. In fact, that same study showed that only 20% of the companies surveyed (all were members of the DMA) planned to rent any names at all for email marketing - that was HALF of last year's rate.
It seems that even email lists rented between synchronistic businesses are performing terribly, so even that practice is rapidly vanishing.
But, if you buy a million addresses for $39.95 there is always a chance you will get 1 or 2 customers from it ;)
<slightly offtopic>
We all hate spam, but with new people coming online every day, all it takes is a few newbies to click on said wonder product to keep the spammers alive. Remember when you had your first intenet email account and you read all the spam that was in your inbox because you didn't know better?
</slightly offtopic>
Does anybody have any idea what kind of success rate we can expect?
We just need to be able to gauge what to expect and if we need to improve the spam's content in the future.
Thanks.
(1) Create a nice newsletter and begin own opt-in list; and
(2) You can often "rent" e-mail addresses through publications. Typically, you don't take possession of the e-mail addresses, instead you send them your message and they distribute it to their opt-in subscriber list. This is actually pretty legitimate and you can get your message out to a very targeted special interest group and type of profession. Biggest downside is that its not cheap (I pay $250/M+).
As others have said, if you rent/buy a cheapie list your client may have his web site and/or ISP shut down depending on how the campaign is implemented.
Good luck.
Jas0n
Who on earth these days is going to opt in and say "yes, please spam me!"
For the tiny fraction of a percent of lists that are genuinely opt-in, the email addresses on the list agreed to subscribe to a particular mailing list, not to have their address sold on and shared with every **** extension marketing company, "make a billion dollars in the next 4 minutes" MLM scam or generic Viagra sales organisation.
Selling on or renting out even a genuine opt-in list would be like a guy renting out his girlfriend and saying that becuase she agreed to have sex with him that agreement can somehow be sold or assigned to subsequent individuals.
Ex. A publisher, hypothetically called Chip News has their subscribers indicate whether they want to receive e-mail on new products in the computer chip design/engineering industry. Joe Engineer at Silicon Corp.'s job is centered around the design, production, etc.. of computer chips and he genuinely wants to stay on top of new products in his industry. Thus, when Chip News sends him (and others like him) an e-mail advertising Better Chip Co.'s new chip fabbing technology, Joe Engineer is happy :)
There are numerous other scenarios where people genuinely opt-in to lists and WANT to receive e-mail advertisements related to a particular topic.
While there are PLENTY of scenarious where renting out an opt-in list is wrong and essentially facilitating spam, but on the flip side there ARE other situations where a person who opts-in EXPRESSLY AGREES to receive e-mails from various sources and indeed welcomes it.
You forget what spam means - UNSOLICITED!
MANY,MANY people sign-up (ie. SOLICIT, or OPT-IN) and welcome receiving e-mail on a variety of topics, even "today".
While these names are certainly "legit" targets for appropriate offers, I question whether the recipient will recognize an e-mail from someone they don't know as anything other than unsolicited spam.
I like the idea of mailing under the name of someone recognized, like a newsletter or magazine publisher. This could be in the form of a sponsorship message or other ad in their e-mail, or in a standalone e-mail that is from the publication and clearly identifies the source.
Unfortunately, bad spammers have given legitimate direct marketers few options to do targeted contacts without incurring the wrath of the recipients.
