Chances are, if you’re like me, you get tons of emails offering you ‘qualified leads’ or wanting to sell you a weirdly specific list. Is this something you should consider?
If you’re wondering the cliff notes version of why I would never buy a lead, it’s two main reasons:
1) I’m buying contact information without much context in buying a lead. I don’t know what marketing messaging that person saw, I don’t know what website they put their information into… and it’s hard for me to keep a promise made or match language without knowing where this person came from and how they were marketed to.
2) Most of these companies will sell a lead to more than one person/company, meaning it’s a bit of a free-for-all. Being contacted by many companies in a short period feels overwhelming and probably decreases the person’s interest in working with any of you.
If you want leads, make your own! Not only can you target the exact person you want, but you can also give them messaging you control, have them interact with a website you want them to, etc.
As for lists, it can save you a lot of time if you’re looking for some general information. I don’t automatically add people from a list I got access to to my list. (It’s a huge reason why, as a marketing company, we have under 1000 subscribers; I have people expressly sign up for marketing messages!) I will maybe send one initial interest message or run an ad to the person and, if they opt in, continue to market to them.
That said, I’ll only consider buying a list if:
- It’s by a company I trust.
- It’s been updated recently.
- It has email addresses for each of the entries.
In short, I might buy a list. I won’t buy leads. More info in the video!