- October 1, 2014
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What Evils Lurk in B2B List Procurement?
It’s the end of the year, and your sales team is clamoring for more leads. One obvious solution is to buy a list of targeted B2B prospects to accompany your in-bound lead generation effort.
Stop! Before you procure any email list, first consider some of the risks involved.
Marsden + Associates outlined two common email list issues and their potential penalties:
CAN-SPAM Violations
Despite misconceptions in the marketplace, the USA’s CAN-SPAM law applies to B2B email marketing, as well as B2C. Yes, it’s true that you can send a commercial email of a promotional nature without any penalty, and complying with CAN-SPAM is not difficult. However, you must heed certain rules, including monitoring what others do on your behalf. Buying a list from another company or retaining a vendor to send your email doesn’t shield you from the law. Purchased lists often are littered with bad addresses that could automatically trigger a SPAM report, costing your company a fine of up to $16,000 per email address. See the Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Compliance Guide to learn all compliance regulations.
You Could Be Blacklisted
What would happen to your inbound marketing campaign if all of your customers with Gmail, Hotmail or similar accounts blocked your email? It happens more often than you might realize. The major free email providers and ISPs track what comes into their servers. When bombarded with emails from one sender, these companies seal the mailboxes to that sender and report them to blacklist reporting services. Inexpensive email lists are usually ripe with junk email addresses. If blacklisted, you can’t reach prospective customers with your campaign.
However, you can still make the sales staff happy by following these tips for B2B list-building, courtesy of Marsden + Associates.
- Look for trusted industry associations in your market that will send your email to their membership for a fee. You won’t own the list, but you will reach many of the people you’re targeting with confidence.
- Encourage your subscribers to share your emails by including social sharing buttons and asking them directly to forward the email to a colleague.
- Work with strategic partners to cross-promote your content to their opt-in lists, and reciprocate the favor next time.
Ready to cultivate your list? We have added our own tips, captured here: “10 Tips to Grow Your Email Marketing List.”
