How do you get your email lists?

Purchasing lists is not the way to do things as Andrew K has stated.

Building organically based on permission is the only way I would ever advise a client to build an email list.

There are a number of ways you can utilise the lists of third parties, thereby benefitting from the efforts of others whilst you build your own permission based list.

How you come to a 'complete acquisition strategy' as Andrew K describes it will very much depend on your industry and goals. There are a myriad number of ways to attract subscribers to your list.

I note that you are in retail, I know many retailers who do very well promoting themselves through the lists of others by way of promotions and discounts. GroupOn as one such vehicle or one of my own clients for example MissyConfidential.

Getting your message out in a legitimate format on someone else's permission based list is time and effort better invested than in any list purchase.

As stated permission cannot be bought and sold, without permission bang goes your email reputation and your deliverability... aka inbox placement.

Andrew B

This will all depend on the audience of email addresses you are looking for, but ultimately for the best results and the quickest way to build an engaged audience you will be looking at a solid mix of options here. Purchase and nurture, capture online, rent and retain with valued incentives (white paper, survey results, webcast, etc.) The mix percentage will be determined by testing and only after you have dipped your toes in each options waters will you know where to invest the bulk of your budget...but remember just like when investing you must always diversify to protect your profits.

Ralph: Permission is everything in email, and as Andrew stated, permission can't be bought and sold.

Organic acquisition is the way to go. You can acquire subscribers through your website (by optimizing forms and making it easy to sign up for your email program). You can use PPC ads that lead to landing pages specifically for email sign-up. You can, as Andrew B. pointed out, place ads in other company's newsletters that lead to sign-up forms.

What you don't want to do is purchase lists. Those lists are usually filled with dead or harvested addresses that will do nothing but harm your overall email delivery reputation. And with that, you risk harming your delivery capabilities with those subscribers who DO want your messages. It's just not a good idea.