Subscribers

Email marketing can be a very effective tool for an organization. It can encompass many things, including list rentals for prospecting.

There are two main types of email lists available. The first being that of a contest, survey or sweepstakes. These types of lists are good if you have an offer that is highly incentive-based.

The second main type is known as product, customer or subscriber lists. These are individuals who have indicated a specific interest in a company’s goods or services, and in many cases have paid for a service from the company. These companies have worked hard to maintain relationships with their customers and will want to ensure your offer is highly relevant to their subscribers.

If you’re looking at email list rental for your organization, here’s some important things you need to know.

1. Buying Email Lists
If someone offers to share data with you or sell you a list of email addresses, run far, far away. Best practices across the globe state that data should never be released. The correct terminology is therefore email list rental — you are renting the list from the list owner, who will send the offer out on your behalf.

2. Opt In
Whether the box is pre-checked, or unchecked and someone has to check it themselves, or whether it’s double or triple opt-in with multiple follow-up emails sent — lists that are permission-based in nature are the types of lists to look for. Unsuspecting individuals who receive email offers that they didn’t ask for, call that spam. Learning how the list is gathered is key to determining the potential quality of the leads.

There’s an entire debate we won’t get into here about pre-checked vs. unchecked boxes in terms of permission, but in general, laws and best practices state that either of these methods indicate at least some form of implied consent, and that is okay. You may feel differently about the subject, hence the importance of finding out how the list owner collects their names and confirms consent for third-party offers.

3. Source Identifiers
When the list owner sends out the email (with your creative that you send them) there should always be a header (or footer, but preferably a header) identifying why a person is receiving the email and reminding them how they can unsubscribe. Being open and honest with list subscribers shows them that this is legitimate and something they agreed to receive. We’ve all received those emails that simply tell us we’re receiving this because we asked to, to which we all immediately offer a few choice words and hit unsubscribe. Receiving an email with a special offer in it because I subscribe to xyz website, newsletter or magazine is going to make me more likely to read the rest of the email/offer, and in fact, be open to it if it interests me. If I have to spend time searching for why I am receiving the email or how to opt out, you can rest assured, I’m not going to pay any attention to what’s in the offer itself.

4. Best Practices
Whether you’re renting Canadian, American or lists from other countries, it’s always best to familiarize yourself with local best practices and laws. For example, the U.S has something called CANSPAM, a law outlining the requirements for sending marketing material via email; and Canada has the PIPED Act, a law covering the use and disclosure of personal information (under which even a business email address falls). Industry Canada has also created a set of best practices to follow when doing any type of email marketing.

5. Use a Broker
Email list brokers specialize in the email industry and will do all of the work to check out the lists’ credibility for you. They typically sign contracts with list owners ensuring their compliances with laws or best practices and will have inside knowledge of which lists might perform better than others for your offer. Most list owners give a commission to list brokers for brining them business, so ideally it shouldn’t cost you any more to rent a list from a broker, and in fact saves you manpower since they do all of the heavy lifting for you.

If you’re looking for a good broker (especially in Canada), I’d recommend Cornerstone Group of companies.*

The above points are just some of the things to look at when considering email list rental, however there are many, many more factors to a successful campaign. These include your offer, your creative design, the subject line and how list owners and their deployment houses handle relationships with their ISPs. I’d be writing a novel if I got into all of those, so look out for more email marketing 101s in future posts.

* Disclosure note: I have to disclose the fact that several years ago, I did work for Cornerstone — in their email list brokerage group for over three years; so perhaps I am a little biased, but I do have insight into their processes and having worked with other brokers since over the years, have always and will always continue to recommend their services over any other brokerage firm.