Purchased Email Lists and Other Shady Marketing Strategies

Purchased email lists and email blasts to those lists cause problems for companies that want to build their brands with integrity. Here’s what to do.

Using Purchased Email Lists Is Spammy

Many third-party vendors sell or rent lists (renting means the list seller maintains ownership and control of the email list).

Here’s one reason why you shouldn’t buy email lists: the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act. This U.S. law regulates commercial email. It doesn’t prohibit individuals or companies from buying and selling email addresses, but it does prohibit the sending of bulk unsolicited emails.

Mailchimp, Mailer Lite, Constant Contact, and other email service providers are required to enforce anti-spam laws, including the CAN-SPAM Act. This means they require you to include an unsubscribe link in your email campaigns. If a company allows you to (1) purchase bulk lists and (2) email those lists without an unsubscribe link, that company is a shady email blast service provider.

Here’s another: regardless of U.S. law, buying email lists and then blasting emails to unsuspecting audiences is spammy. You know it’s true since you yourself surely hate the spam that lands in your own inbox. It’s annoying to have to weed through so much inbox crap that you never requested.

Do you really want to be that guy?

How to Build an Email List

I’m hoping against hope that you don’t want to be that guy.

Let’s say you’re a new company and don’t have many customers. Or maybe you’ve always had a steady stream of customers, but now you want to grow that customer base. The solution? Organic email list building. Instead of going the purchased email lists route, strongly consider attracting your tribe by offering timely, valuable information that either saves your tribe time, money, headaches or empowers them to do their jobs easier, better, faster …

Here are 4 things you can do without buying a list:

1. Use signup forms on your website. Here’s an example.
2. Create lead magnets. Lead magnets are marketing tools that generate leads by offering a high-value resource in exchange for the lead’s contact information. Examples include ebooks, white papers, and other assets leads can download. Here’s an example. Here’s another.
3. Tap into your existing customer base by offering exclusive deals in your email newsletters. Offer incentives to your customers if they help you spread the word.
4. Share your newsletters on your social channels to expand the reach of your newsletters and increase the number of signups.

Fast Wins + Zero Fluff = Game Changer

My aim is to help small businesses and teams keep from making common (and costly) marketing mistakes and get out of their “random acts of marketing” rut. All fast wins and zero spam, smoke, mirrors, or fluff. Best of all: no marketing PhD required. (Heads up: This is an organic email list builder in action.)

You can get periodic marketing tips and tricks to empower you to eliminate random acts of marketing, improve your marketing aim, and fire on all cylinders. No smoke, mirrors, BS, or fluff. All fast-win informational goodness that you can put into action straightaway.