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Renting an Email List - Is it a Good Idea? Renting an email list basically means to pay a third-party an agreed sum to utilize their email list for one email campaign. Needless to say, email list renting can differ widely with some only agreeing to deliver just one email in a week to another subscribing member of the list. This is usually seen in internet marketing businesses where a particular niche of customers are mostly subscribed to that particular email list. This tactic can work well when there is no immediate need for marketing . It is however, a poor means of marketing when you have an upcoming event or sales that you want to get the email addresses for. There are many advantages of email lists. In fact, it has been proven that email lists are more effective in reaching out to prospects and also in tracking market trends and responses. However, there are many disadvantages as well. For example, renting email lists are not cost effective for most marketers and hence it may not be viable in long run. A good number of users on junk email lists complain about the ineffectiveness of these lists in getting rid of their old email address. This was true even before online marketers started using email list renting for their online marketing businesses. However, with time, people have become more skeptical about online marketing businesses which have not been proved to yield results. With this, more business people are turning towards internet marketing techniques without having to spend too much money on advertising. If you are interested in renting email lists, then you must first consider if you really need email list renting or if you can just build your own opt-in list without spending a penny. As said earlier, there are some disadvantages of renting email lists as you may not have the email address owners' permission. Moreover, some internet marketers who have tried to rent lists have seen that they were either charged an exorbitant amount or had ads of other advertisers placed on their opt-in pages. This is the reason why some internet marketers choose not to rent email lists but instead opt-in. It is also the main reason why the latter is considered the better way to market. Opt-in email list rental companies have various methods of collecting fees from their members. Some charge per email list while others demand a certain fee per month for unlimited number of emails sent to their members. In the former case, the company collects fees only when a subscriber agrees to receive emails from that particular company. In the latter case, no fees are collected unless subscribers do something about it. Hence, both offline direct marketing and opt-in email list rentals are bound by a contract that prohibits one party from exploiting the other party's customers. The advantages of opt-in email lists are quite obvious. For starters, the costs involved in these services are considerably less than that of traditional solo advertising and joint ventures. In addition, you get to increase your net profits through a well targeted campaign. These services also help in increasing the loyalty and interest level of your existing customers. Lastly, you also have the advantage of gaining valuable contacts which can prove to be extremely useful in future. The disadvantages of renting an email list rather than building one are very obvious. First, you would need to buy every email list you want to use. Second, the generated traffic would be very minimal as there would be no need to put in extra effort to generate new leads. If you are already having a well built mailing list with lots of traffic coming in regularly, you can focus more efforts on ways of enhancing the product quality. Renting an email list does have its disadvantages however. First, the generated traffic would be too small to make much of an impact. Next, you would need to purchase pretty well targeted subscriber information which may prove to be difficult to find or just plain expensive. Last, you would not gain much in terms of brand recognition or even in brand awareness unless and until you build a pretty well established online presence.
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