Re: Email list purchases

From: Jim Reardon <jim_at_amusive.com>
Date: Tue 16 Apr 2002 20:03:02 -0600

At 11:05 PM 4/15/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Does anyone know where are the best places to purchase
>targeted email lists? Are there any well known companies out
>there that sells email lists? Also, what's the pluses and
>minuses of using purchased email lists?

You can not purchase an opt-in email list.
You can not purchase an opt-in email list.
You can not purchase an opt-in email list.

It's important to say this three times because, as it seems, a lot of
companies do not understand this concept. Users that have not opted-in to
your offers do not deserve to be bombarded with them. Often companies
selling 'opt-in' lists are just selling harvested emails, or tired email
addresses collected years ago (even still, they haven't opted-in to *your*
offer -- this means, essentially, they haven't opted in).

I recently came across this great story online while searching for abuse
information on a service provider -- this should be required reading for
anyone who thinks they can buy opt-in:

         http://www.honet.com/Nadine/default.htm

And to answer your final question -- there are only negatives to using
purchased email lists. Your company name will suffer, you risk being
blacklisted (therefore losing email and visitors), and you risk losing
buyers. I would personally never do business with a company that does
business this way, and there are many others out there that feel the same way.

If you want to send out opt-in emails, there are plenty of companies that
rent out double-opt-in lists. This way you stay reputable. One such site
is PostmasterDirect, although I'm sure there are many others. I'd highly
suggest you search for information on any email company you do business
with (specifically, search the net abuse newsgroups). It's a great way to
find out if they are really opt-in.

--
  Jim Reardon <jim_at_amusive.com>
  what do you want for free? http://www.freecenter.com/
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Received on Tue Apr 16 2002 - 21:03:02 CDT