Evan Carmichael advises against buying email lists, recommending AWeber for opt-in email marketing instead. He suggests growing your list through free downloads and joint-venture partnerships with other list owners, which drive higher-quality sign-ups than purchased lists and avoid legal risks.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from one of my forum readers, Hertz, who is asking about email marketing and list building. And I'll read the specific question. So he wrote in saying, "Really could use some sound advice. I'm building my email list. It's limited now, but growing slowly." I've added an email opt-in for my website, but wanted to dip my toes into the water with a bulk email program. There's a program called SendBlaster, and I wanted to buy a smallish targeted email list. Can anyone throw some light on the software choice? Is it any good? What do I need to look for when buying an email list? And thank you— sorry, how to ensure I'm not breaking any spammy laws? Thank you in advance for your views. So thanks for the question, Hertz. A couple of things for you, I guess, here. I've never heard of this program before, SendBlaster. I use AWeber, I found it really helpful. For me in terms of building the opt-in and also sending emails out on a regular basis. And the emails have become almost part of the backbone of what I do with my business. It's great to be able to connect with, with my readers on an ongoing basis. So I really preach the value of having a list and building it up and sending out regular updates, if it's AWeber or any other software. In terms of buying the list, I'd be really careful about this. In terms of breaking the spamming laws, you wanna make sure that people are opting into your list. So, definitely having something on your website, if you have some kind of free download or giveaway, you're more likely to get people to convert and wanna sign up for your list. In terms of buying lists, I would probably not do it. What I might wanna do, if you're looking at trying to increase the number of people on your list, is do some kind of joint venture. So you look at other people who have a list, and you offer them either some money or some kind of partnership where they promote you to their list. So it's It's way better to do it where you're getting a recommendation from their list. So I don't really do it on my list, but for example, if you partner with somebody like me, I could say, you know, Hertz has a great service, go check it out. Or he's got this free resource that he's offering on his website, go check it out. And that'll go to my 60,000+ list of entrepreneurs. So that would be a much better way to convert people because the people on my list are used to hearing from me. They like my recommendations, most of the time at least, I hope. And that personal endorsement goes a long way to be able to convert people. It's way better than just, you know, buying my list, which I never sell, but as an example, if you were to buy my list and just spam them or send them some kind of offer, because it's not coming from me, they don't know who you are, they're getting bombarded with emails every day, they're not probably gonna convert to become your newsletter subscriber or buy your product or service. So, uh, two paths. First, continue building on your own, try to build some kind of opt-in where you're getting some kind of free bonus if they sign up for your newsletter to increase your conversions. And then B, partner with people who already have lists and try to come up with some kind of joint venture where you're both benefiting from it and they're recommending you to their list. And you're gonna get a lot more conversions than just buying a list. Worrying about breaking the law, spending money on acquiring that list. And it's a lot more fun, you know, when you're doing something with a lot of added value and you're being recommended, we're giving away free bonuses, you're adding value to your potential clients and it's way more fun than just spamming people and getting a whole bunch of people saying, "Take me off your list." So hope that helps, Hertz. Again, if you're gonna use AWeber, it's great, or another similar kind of email software. If you guys like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. It's what makes me wanna do more of these videos for you guys. And, uh, if you have a question about email marketing or what I do, or another question about your business, feel free to leave it in the comments below. I always read those and try to answer as many as I can. So thank you, and we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.
