Hey readers! I wanted to take a moment out to talk about bulk email lists, since I actually got a question about it sent to my email address. But since this is a sensitive topic to discuss and even give advice on, I have to protect my butt…

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OK…

Yes, buying a big list of leads and email addresses is the ‘easy’ way out instead of building your own list. But when you’re dealing with a bunch of people you don’t know, and they don’t know YOU, it could lead to trouble. Although I’m not a big fan of buying leads, I will show you something you can do to properly utilize these lists. Do this at your own risk, and YES, you are responsible for whatever happens. This is just an idea…please remember that.

When you buy leads, they don’t know you from a hole in the ground. Seriously, bulk leads are the hardest to convert, but by building a relationship with them over time, you should definitely come off with something.

But the first key is first and foremost…GET THEM OFF THE BULK LIST!

When I say this, I mean…blast an email to the bulk list using whatever service you use that supports this. But, you then have to get them to sign up for a REAL mailing list of yours where they’ll have to double-opt. That way you can alleviate any ’spam’ complaints in the future. The last thing you want is for your emails to get ‘blacklisted’ by all the major email service providers like Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

My idea behind it is to use the ‘reverse squeeze’ strategy that I’ve been praising over the past few days. Send them just ONE and only ONE email that just gives out CONTENT. I prefer to give them content that they’ll ENJOY and USE right away. After the content, give them a ‘call to action’ and ask them to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list.

The most interested leads will get involved and signup…and THOSE are the people we want to put all of our marketing energy into. By continuing to approach the leads who didn’t convert off your bulk list, you’re basically ‘beating a dead horse’ so to speak. No matter how many times you smack it, they’re not waking up Besides, blasting a bunch of emails to a bulk list will eventually catch some heat with these guys who are being bombarded with emails from someone they didn’t ASK to receive emails from.

So, one email of pure content to get them to sign up should be enough. If people don’t sign up after your content, SCREW ‘EM! It’s their loss. Only the most qualified, interested and ‘red hot’ leads will follow your lead, my friend.

That’s my strategy for handling bulk leads. Like I said, I’m not a big fan at all of these types of leads and lists, and I’m not here to condone the activity of buying bulk leads, because you never know where or how these leads were acquired in the first place.

Sometimes, these lists were built by an ‘email spider’ that scans thousands of websites everyday, reads the actual webpage and copies any instances of any email addresses in the text. Notice why many marketers post their email address like this:

admin (at) theonlymoneymaker.com

They do this because ‘email spider’ programs will bypass this instead of a normal:

admin@ theonlymoneymaker.com

And besides, another reason why I don’t deal with bulk emails anymore is because sometimes these lists are merely ‘rehashed’ lists. Someone will purchase a big list of 1 million leads, and break it down into smaller lists containing 10K a piece. So, the same lists are being passed around like the common cold.

I catch my email address getting TONS of spam, and if you have a free email account with Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or anyone else, it’s a lot easier for ‘email spiders’ to snag your email address, since these free services have ‘member directories’ that anyone can access and possibly spider.

But that’s my take on bulk emails. Do what you will with them, but that’s on YOU, not me.

T.M.