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How best to email a purchased database?

by Splinter
10 replies
I recently acquired a database from a competitor who went bang and Infusionsoft have decided to lockdown my account due to the high spam complaints received.

They said what we should do is email the lists with a request to opt in and then moving forward I should only market to the opt'd in contacts which is fine however what I would like to find out is

a. How I should approach the database asking them to opt in? Are there any articles that I could read showing me a 'best practice' in order to maximise opt in's?

b. Is there any other way I can go about getting these leads to sign up without p!ssing off Infusionsoft? Perhaps using a mailing server to email the list and lead them off to a landing page where they can then sign up.

Thanks,
#database #email #purchased
  • Profile picture of the author E. Brian Rose
    Many of the autoresponder services will allow you to upload a database, but an opt-in request would have to be sent to each of them. This is usually something that can be done automatically. Check with your provider and ask them.

    Are you talking a database of over 10k? If not, you might not want to bother with trying to get them to opt-in. My guess is that the accept rate will be low no matter how you word it.

    Do you have their physical addresses? You may want to start thinking about post-cards.
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  • Profile picture of the author Splinter
    I have 62k all together of which about 10-15k have addresses. Whether they are the correct addresses or not, I am not sure but the post card route is an excellent idea - Thanks.

    So with there being 62k email addresses, would you suggest just sending them an opt in request and then keeping my fingers crossed that a decent % opt in?
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  • Profile picture of the author Niche
    Bought or acquired email lists are not ideal.

    But you've got one now so where to from here

    The best thing is to set up an opt in page somewhere and then email the leads you purchased and ask them to opt in if they are interested in getting information or your newsletter or minicourse (obviously you would give thenm the URL of the opt in page)
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  • Profile picture of the author AceOfShirts
    I read once the best way to pull this off is to offer them a free product, usually an ebook, if they subscribe to your new list.

    Just send the ebook/gift link in the "thanks for subscribing" email.
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      If your products are closely aligned with the list, you should give it a shot. I am a huge buyer of targeted lists myself and have no problem tossing them into my autoresponder (no opt-in). We get about 23% conversion (sales) over a period of 30 day cycles. There are some commercial autoresponders that will allow you to import up to 5,000/day, some are unlimited. Just be sure you have the ISP and date when they subscribed, and you are CAN SPAM compliant with unsubscribe link etc or your provider may shut you down.
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      • Profile picture of the author Splinter
        Myob, can you let me know which email providers you tend to use as I have had Infusionsoft chat to me saying I need to come up with an approach to mitigate the spam complaints we got from mailing the list a few times. My mistake was perhaps that I was mailing the list to come to one of our seminars and then thereafter marketing to them our products for sale a couple of times per week when I should have perhaps started by

        1. Emailing with a request to opt on or sending to a landing page where we can gather some more info on thier requirements within our industry
        2. Then only marketing the products to the opt'd in list but continuing to market the opt in request to the remainder of the list.

        I was told that iContact and Constant Contact have a less lenient spam policy than infusionsoft but if you could shed some light for me on this matter, it would be beneficial.

        By the way, the complaint percentage I was receiging was 0.26% where their acceptance level is 0.1 so I was 2.5 times above this.


        Thanks,
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        • Profile picture of the author myob
          I really have no idea how to salvage that list; apparently it wasn't well targeted, or there may been pre-existing problems with your competitor from where you obtained the list. That high percentage of spam complaints is going to be trouble wherever you go. I would not even touch it myself now.

          Perhaps testing a small segment with a self-hosted solution may work, such as AutoResponse Plus (ARPlus3.com :: AutoResponse Plus AutoResponder System), but it appears the list had already been estranged before you got it; a sound reason why that competitor went down.

          If there is any other way of establishing contact with them such as mentioned previously postal mailing or even calling, I would recommend that to repair the damage (ie unresolved customer service issues, etc) rather than inflaming them any further.
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      • Profile picture of the author vbond
        Myob, which emailers have you used for importing purchased lists. Also is there one where that reports inbox vs spam?
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        • Profile picture of the author myob
          Originally Posted by vbond View Post

          Myob, which emailers have you used for importing purchased lists. Also is there one where that reports inbox vs spam?
          I have several hundred lists going on for various projects, and most of the time I'm using ARplus3.com which is self-hosted on my servers. You may consider that as an option.

          Also:

          icontact.com

          verticalresponse.com

          followup101.com allows up to 1million imports per day but requires double opt-in

          digitaladgear.com/a/2/mb20 unlimited imports no optin required (very expensive)

          All of the emailers above require as a minimum before allowing to import that you have the ISP where the subscribers opted in from, and a date stamp.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by dnsg View Post

      I read once the best way to pull this off is to offer them a free product, usually an ebook, if they subscribe to your new list.

      Just send the ebook/gift link in the "thanks for subscribing" email.
      That may be right if you are transferring one of your lists to another service. The OP is trying to get people who were on someone else's list on to his own - someone these people do not know.

      This is going to be very hard to do. You would of been much better to have the original owner of this list just send out a promotion or free offer to try and get as many of the subscriber son to your list as possible.
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