Bulk email lists are the the most important asset in your online based business. Not convinced yet?

What Is a Bulk Email List?

When starting a business, the most important questions are:

• “What do you sell?”
• and “Who do you sell to?”

Suppose you know exactly what you are selling. Bringing the product(s)/service(s) in your customer's mind is the big trial.

An opt-in bulk email list is a targeted collection of profiles (corect names, actual email addresses and other useful data), belonging to people that have agreed to receive information via email on certain topics, from a certain company or from third parties.

Bulk Email Lists for Rent

The main players here are the list owners, the list managers and the list brokers.

The List Owners

They are persons who offer opt in bulk email lists for rent. The individuals in those lists have agreed (opt in or double opt in) to receive information on a specific topic from third parties. The prices range among $20 and $40 per thousand unique email receivers. You pay the list owners per thousand emails per every emailing campaign. The list owners won't disclose the recipients to you.

The List Manager

However, if you want to make the purchasing yourself, you have to talk to the list manager, who works for the list owner. The problem is that talking directly to the list managers, they would always try to sell you whatever their owner has available for rent. And their lists could be wrong for you.

The List Broker

If you want a targeted list, you should address a list broker. These guys will intermediate the transaction. The advantages are that:

1. The broker knows more list owners.
2. The broker knows more about list owners.
3. The broker contracts the owner's services according to your interests.
4. There's no additional cost for a broker's services, as he is paid by list owners. Usually, he negotiates discounts that count as his benefit. The standard is 15% to 20%.

Usually, an email marketing campaign based exclusively on rented lists has a 1% response rate. What is over that is considered a really successful campaign. The problem is that you can't think of list rental for a budget that is less than $2,500. If you want to address a list broker, the minimum budget would be $5,000.

Bulk Email Lists for Sale

This is a very tricky option when sending mass email. You can never be sure where the emails in those lists come from. They could have been picked up by an email harvesting software. Which means you will be sending unsolicited bulk email. Which would make you a spammer.

In House Bulk Email Lists

This is the safest, the most effective, most time consuming and expensive way to go when building a bulk email list. In house lists are 100% your business contacts. You can build more lists, targeting each list for a different newsletter you edit, for a different class of services or/and products.

Seven Tips to Build an In-house Opt-in List

1. Convert the visitors of your website into subscribers. Announce free subscribing option on every page of the website.
2. Convert the readers that forwarded your newsletters into subscribers by including a subscription invite in each newsletter.
3. Cross promote your newsletters using subscription invites.
4. Offer freebies for new subscribers.
5. Make subscription a condition for discounts, online contests and other promotions you run.
6. Ask for email address and email permission whenever you talk to a client or prospect.
7. 'Advertise' your website/newsletter in forums, discussion lists, online workshops.