How to build a list of your potential clients.

This week my company tried to buy a list of business email addresses.   We were a little sceptical about the validity of the list, but it was cheap, and we thought it might be worth a punt.

So my colleague sent in an order.   The company refused to accept the email as an order, and said, “payment upfront.”

Fair enough I thought, if they have a lot of people trying to avoid payment of invoices.  We then tried to pay by credit card.

Turned out they didn’t accept credit cards – not even paypal.  What they wanted – in fact what they insisted on – was a BACS bank transfer, something that could not be cancelled. At this point we stopped.

Yes we wanted the goods, but I have this rule about normal procedures.  A company of any substance that is selling goods might well demand money up front for a first purchase (my company doesn’t but maybe we are a bit soft in this matter), but if that is the case they must allow the most common payment system that exists – the credit card.   If they don’t then to my mind there’s something wrong.

Of course I now don’t know if this list of email addresses was any good or not, nor do I know if the disk containing the list would have contained a virus or malicious code – there is always that possibility.

But it does lead me to continue my view that for most companies the best way to sell via email is to build your own list, either on your own machine, or via a company that specialises in this service (as indeed we do).

It is not just that I now suspect that there might have been something terribly wrong with this disk, or indeed that it might never have arrived, it is also that the list probably wouldn’t have been much use, but we might have picked up a handful of interesting contacts from it.    But the real work for all companies is still to be done, even if you find such a list.  That work involves researching the email addresses of people who seem relevant to you.

It is a job that is front-loaded in terms of costs – the cost of researching is bigger than the cost of sending out the emails – but it has to be done if you want to use email as a marketing tool.

If you would like to talk about researching email lists do give me a call – I am quite happy to go through the ins and outs in relation to your need.  01536 399 013.

Tony Attwood