I have a very clear-cut opinion on list rental.  Don’t do it, regardless of the legal or ethical situation and no matter what the list renter says!

Put yourself in the position of the recipient; pretend for a moment that it’s you.  How many times have you signed up to an email newsfeed and deliberately clicked a box stating “your email address will be sold to others so expect to get inundated with unsolicited email – do you accept?”  It simply doesn’t happen; you never give your consent to receive interruption messages from sources you don’t know.  If it doesn’t happen to you, why do you think others would give such permission?

The result is that those that have inadvertently managed to get onto “opt-in” email marketing lists, spend their time filtering and ignoring your message.  In many cases those you are trying to interrupt feel negative and disrespected by your brand.  If a recipient didn’t ask to hear from your organisation, it is simply considered as spam!

Permission marketing is based around respect and understanding the recipients needs, with the full understanding that permission does not transfer. It is better to talk to 50 people that want to listen to your message than 50,000 that don’t.  And if you are really lucky and manage to get someone’s consent, the moment you disrespect him or her, they are gone – opted-out. Permission marketing is not easy, but it can be extremely powerful.

The secret is to build your own list.  Create a devoted following of customers and potential customers.  Give them something of interest in your newsletter; make it informative, funny, quirky and memorable, then watch your opt-in list grow.   No doubt it will take time and no doubt it will not be easy, but the business that is derived from talking to people that want to listen will substantially outweigh the business you would ever get from shouting at people that don’t want to hear.