Your Guide to Buying a B2B Mailing List

If you’re considering purchasing a B2B mailing list for your company’s marketing purposes, here are four steps to getting the best one.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask

When you’re dealing with a B2B mailing list company, you’re more than likely speaking to a salesperson. They’ll tell you their lists are the best available anywhere, and that you’ll get excellent results from it. That may not necessarily be true, so don’t be afraid to speak up and ask hard-hitting questions in order to really get the best data available. Just don’t ask inane questions such as, “Is your list good?” because you’ll only invite positive and meaningless responses. Instead, focus on data sources, legal issues, guarantees and other tangible matters.

2. Beware bad data

If you purchase a B2B mailing list for half-nothing, expect half-nothing, or less, in return. You may even find your email server blocked due to spamming people from an inferior list that you bought. Invest in quality data for quality returns — and that means checking out the list provider before you buy, to make sure they have a good track record of providing quality data.

3. Take it slowly

Don’t be temped to buy lots of lists from data salespeople who may bundle them together in special offers or packages — remember, they too have sales targets and want to sell as much data as possible. Stick to what you want, and don’t be afraid to test the data before you buy, while also being wary that samples provided by data companies may not represent the rest of what’s on a purchased mailing list.

4. Do it properly

When engaging in direct marketing, bear in mind the UK and EU laws and regulations governing the activity. You don’t want to harm your company’s image by getting a negative reputation for using bad or illegal data. Make sure you purchase B2B mailing lists that are ‘opt-in’ and from a reputable company. Buying a mailing list is an important task for the development of your company. You want to make sure you get a return on your investment, but equally, that you have the most relevant B2B mailing list possible that covers your market. Leaving the buying to lower-level employees is a mistake. They may not care what’s on the list, only about the best price they can get, and you may end up with an inferior list that doesn’t give you much new business.

Make sure you talk directly to a list provider, such as ukbusinessdata, about what you want so that you get it.