How to put a value on email data? (5)
Question for all you STM mailing experts....
I've been offered an email list that has been verified in the past 30 days. The list is of business owners in New Zealand. I was wanting to email them to promote business retreats at my lodge.
However I don't have a clue at what to value the list at, or what questions to ask to make sure it's all good. Help!
Not an expert by any means, but I'll just think out loud:
Value:
Time to be the advertiser instead of the aff now 
Just do a very conservative estimation of how many conversions you can get and based on that and what you want to make, you at least have a starting number. This of course is relative to how responsive the list is, hence go with the very conservative estimation. (take into account if this is a one blast type of thing or you are actually buying the list, I think changes things a bit)
Questions:
- How were the leads captured? (incent, home owners newsletters, forums, free services, etc).
- Has the list owner sent them any offers? Types? Response rates, unsubs, spam complaints...
- Are these leads expecting to receive communications from third parties (assuming you are doing the actual sending)? If not, did they accept to be sent advertisement for third parties in the list: you could have the owner of the list send your message.
- If you are sending the emails yourself, inboxing is hard, so take that into consideration when doing the estimate. I'm sure experts can chime in on a number here.
Not sure what else... Anyway, hope this helps.
I would be very carefull promoting your own personal non pump and bump online offer AKA a legit offline lodge venture to a email list with local business owners that you do not 100% know (assuming here) the source off.
When it comes to something more personal like email, people can really take it the wrong way.
Is this email list warm or cold?
You really need the awsners to the questions posted above ^^ to come up with a number and find out if it's actual worth the trouble.
Might want to add that it's worth knowing if these are double or single opt-in leads.
You can also ask for Open rates, Click rates & Bounce rates. (That's pretty much what values the list as off right now)
Can the dude provide you with a sample blast for let's say a simple survey regarding your niche so you can base your price on that?
You probably already know most of this information but if you DO purchase this list I would recommend warming it up first and a good way to do that is for example; setting up a simple survey as I mentioned above and ask a few questions related to your offer. You could add the question; What would be your favorite location for a business meeting? (Could even include a little image of your lodge right in there).
Take the responding leads and put them in a seperate list, this will lower the bounce, report (Complain) rates and overall a much higher inbox rate.
Also, most autoresponders allow you to import lists if the leads where collected with permission so getting your emails inboxed shouldn't be that big of a deal and I am assuming we are not talking about anything over 50k/100k emails right? Keep in mind that the prices add up for a good sized list, keep that in mind with your BID.
Originally Posted by Mr Green
If you're just sending a few hundred emails, it's pretty harmless. If you're sending thousands or hundreds of thousands, I recommend you steer clear, unless an email expert is handling this for you.
Here's what you're thinking:
- Acquire clean, verified, local email list
- create a nice targeted email
- blast them
- Profit
Here's what's gonna happen:
- You will get spam complaints (some people think they'll be fine if they just avoid Gmail/Hotmail/Aol. They are wrong)
- If you send using an ESP, you will be banned
- If you send from a private server, you will be blacklisted (DNSBL), and probably won't have a feedback loop to show you what's happening
- Your sending domain will be blacklisted which will disrupt your regular mail flow from your mailbox, like mrgreen@mrgreenresort.com
- The domain of your business will be content-blocked across the board (URIBL), so if anyone sends an email containing mrgreenresort.com, it will be considered spam
There are creative ways around all this. How big a list are we talking, and what do they want for it? Knowing how to execute a campaign of unsolicited commercial email is more important than the list itself.
I can help you appraise the list if you send me details. Chances are I can also provide you with a higher-quality list that's specific to NZ and includes company names, city, number of employees, etc.
Shit I don't think I could of asked for better feedback. Thanks guys.
Home > Paid Traffic Sources > Email