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Author: Willie Crawford Article source: http://www.williecrawford.com/. Used with author's permission.
Years ago, I listened to Internet marketing "gurus" share
that they had lists in the hundreds of thousands, and I was
all ears. Up to that point, I had not managed to get my lists
above 60,000 (after many years of consistently working at it).
After a little further investigation, some of them shared
with me that they often purchased new list members in batches
of 25,000... 50,000... even several hundred thousand.
Knowing the value of each of my individual list members,
based upon how much each spent with me per year on average,
visions of riches started dancing in my head.
Then this little voice in the back of my head asked if this
wasn't DANGEROUS! Wouldn't I get spam complaints... or
something. How could I just buy email addresses and add them
to my list? Was this legal? why didn't more people know
about this, and why weren't more people doing it.
So I investigated further.
One of the first things I discovered was that lots of big name
marketers were using co-registration leads with great results.
Further investigation showed me that these leads were generated
in a variety of way, and that there was a wide range of
differences in quality AND methods of generating these lists.
What I now consider the best method of generating
co-registration lists is to have a service get people to sign
up SPECIFICALLY for your list. There are companies that allow
you to write up a description of your list, and this
description is displayed on an opt-in form on high traffic
websites. The sites' visitors read the description of your list,
and based upon that description decide to subscribe. I consider
this the best method because the individuals are specifically
subscribing to YOUR list.
The service I've used most for generating the above-describe
type of subscriber is called Lead Factory. You can read about
them and their services here:
http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?subs
Another type of subscriber, or lead, that you can purchase is
a lead who didn't specifically subscribe to YOUR list, but did
request more information on your type of product. These
leads are often gathered by companies putting a form on high
traffic sites inviting people to request more information on
business opportunities... or other profitable topics.
Prospects fill in the form and are then added to lists that
are sold to people looking for leads or subscribers. This can
be where things get sticky...
The first place where things can get murky is that some sites
don't make it clear to these individuals that they are going
to sell their information. They sometimes state this but not in
a very clear fashion. So they compile these lists and sell them
to people looking for leads interested in a specific topic.
If you buy one of these list, and it wasn't made incredibly clear
that they were going to be contacted by a bunch of people
offering to "help them," these people could get somewhat upset
when their email boxes start getting flooded.
The above problem stems largely from the fact that some firms
offering opt-in leads TRICK people into "agreeing" to receive
offers. They may use a statement as vague as that business
associates will also send them special offers. If you email
these people, they may get very upset since, in their opinion,
your email was uninvited... and unwelcome intrusion.
There are services that make it very clear that they will have
people who offer income opportunities or online business
opportunities contacting you. The better of these companies
build lists specifically for a given customer and they don't
sell the lists to more than a few customers. One firm I've use
that's like this is know as Nitro. These guys get an order and
they build a list specifically for that customer. Actually,
they allow one customer to buy a list that is only for their
use, or, for less of an investment, that customer can get a
custom-built list that's shared with up to 3 other marketers.
You can check these guys out at:
http://therealsecrets.com/co-reg/
NOTE: I specifically mentioned the Nitro guys because I
know them personally, and have GRILLED them on their business
practices and HOW they generate leads. I believe that they
operate a very reputable and ethical business. I CAN'T make
that statement about all of the more than a dozen companies
that I have investigated.
One of the biggest dangers in using co-reg leads who didn't
specifically subscribe to your list is of course the likelihood
of spam complaints. If a subscriber views your email as
unwelcome, then in their eyes you spammed them. There are
factors that increase the likelihood of this happening, and
there are ways of reducing or completely eliminating the
probability of these complaints.
One factor that increases the likelihood of complaints is the
age of the list. If you purchase an Old list, there's a good
chance that dozens of people just like you also purchased that
list and have emailed these people. These people are now
simply tired of being offered more "help." With a fresh list
... only a few days to a few weeks old, you're less likely to
encounter this problem.
When someone fills in a form on a website requesting more
information, they are actually INTERESTED in receiving more
information. Why else would they fill in the form... except
in the instances previously mentioned where they are tricked
... or perhaps even incentivized to fill in the form in
exchange for a gift.
Given that an individual really is interested in receiving
more information on a given topic, the correct way to
approach them is to introduce yourself and allow them to warm
up to you BEFORE you try to sell them anything. You need to
send them a series of email that identify yourself, PROVE to
them that you are legitimate, and demonstrate to them that
you really do have their best interest at heart. This takes
time and effort. There is a lot of technique to this. I've
studied the topic of warming co-reg leads up to you...
extensively. The single best report I've ever read on the
topic is called "Co-Reg Secrets." You can find it here:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=69919
When using co-reg leads, I personally tell the person in my
first few emails why I'm emailing them, where I got their
contact information from, and I also tell them that if they
are no longer interested how they can get off of the list
with just a click. This has worked well for me although my
lists are now so HUGE that I rarely use co-reg leads. It's
a fact that those who visit your site and then subscribe to
your list are more valuable... much more responsive!
I mentioned the danger of not using only FRESH lists. The
reason this is CRITICAL is that many people who purchase lists
turn around and sell them to recoup some of their costs. This
sort of makes sense. There's a good chance that many of these
leads don't see the majority of emails sent to them simply
due to filters, etc. It's also possible that what you have to
offer may not be exactly right for them.
The PROBLEM comes when a list is resold over and over again!
"Buyer A" resells a list to 5 people, and 2 of them resell it
to 6 people each, and 3 of them resell it to 4 people each. By
this time, those "opt-in lead" are getting pretty frustrated
with having their personal email box flooded with JUNK email.
Then you buy one of these list, add them to your
autoresponders, and your ISP gets 20 complaints from irate
people in 20 minutes. On top of that you get 100 emails with
some "choice" words about your heritage and suggesting strange
things you can do to yourself. To protect themselves and
their other customers your web host or list host shuts you
down! Not a good day.
Done properly, with a quality list, or better yet, one built
specifically for you (with the opt-in actually subscribing to
YOUR list), using co-reg leads can be an excellent way to grow
a list incredibly fast. Done wrong, or if you're just plain
unlucky, it can be a real disaster. I even know of one "big
name" Internet marketer who received a death threat after using
a co-reg list.
If you are considering using co-reg leads you want to check the
terms of service closely at your web host or list hosts. Many
prohibit you using co-reg leads to mail from their servers, or
even to promote domains hosted with them. They simply don't want
to risk the potential adverse effects. Many autoresponder
services such as the one I operate at ProfitAutomation.com will
NOT allow you to mass import co-reg leads. However, there are
other autoresponder services that understand the nature of
using co-reg leads, and view it as a legitimate business model.
I can point you to some of those if you ask.
The purpose of this article is merely to educate. It's not to
offer ANY advice. It's just to make you aware of a common
practice and show you some things that you need to consider.
Another purpose of the article is to stimulate discussion. I
invite you to discuss this topic on my Internet marketing
discussion forum: http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi Willie Crawford is a corporate president, published author,
seminar speaker and host, tele-seminar speaker and host,
retired military officer, karate black belt, master network
marketing trainer, and lifetime student of marketing. He shows
people how to actually generate substantial income on-line
using very simple, easily modeled systems. An example of
such a system that you can study and duplicate is at:
http://HowToBeReallyHealthy.com
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