Why have a database for email marketing instead of a purchased list?

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Have you considered purchasing an email marketing database because you thought it would be the easiest way to ensure better results? If you are a marketer or business owner, you have probably already received promises of large, readily available lists to use to speed up the lead conversion process.

If so, we assume that you follow Inbound Marketing best practices and, shareholder database therefore, you already know the importance of defining your buyer persona , establishing the best content for the sales funnel and everything related to your buyer's journey.

In your content strategy, you should create an editorial calendar, appoint a team of producers and reviewers, and evaluate whether the pieces are in line with the requirements of your campaign. In addition, it is important to define KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track the results, and some very good ones are:

open rate,
number of conversions,
click volume,
inter alia.
Then, you hire an email marketing automation tool and pay a monthly plan, according to your project budget. Finally, you put your strategy into practice.

Who will be your potential customers? Are they properly qualified and classified to accept the type of content you intend to share? Have you reached this stage and don't know what to do with your purchased database?

Find out now how to restructure your efforts for better results and why you should never use a purchased database.

Why you should have your own database for email marketing?
What to do to create a solid email marketing strategy and get your own database?
Why you should have your own database for email marketing?
There are many reasons why it is worth taking the "long" but sustainable route, that is, creating and expanding your own email marketing database. Here are some compelling reasons:

The purchased list does not include profiles compatible with you.
The list can even be verified, meaning it includes real Internet users, with consumption histories at your company's direct competitors and access to websites and e-commerce sites . But that doesn't guarantee that it contains profiles compatible with the characteristics, desires, fears and needs of your business's buyer persona.

In addition, people often sell unreliable lists, with missing, outdated or incomplete data, with incorrect names, for example.

In the worst case scenario, you will be subject to the acquisition of email addresses illegally extracted from the web or deep web. This can set up a spam policy that is inappropriate for your company and the results you really expect.

The need to create a list that is appropriate to the characteristics of your buyer persona is related to the importance of providing relevant information, aligned with the content or topics that attracted the user to your website, blog or online store.

Therefore, never send marketing pieces that are not suitable for the funnel stage or do not have the capacity to fulfill your potential customer's expected purchase.

If you buy lists, your brand can become known as a spammer.
People hate spam. We don't need formulas and statistics to prove it. We're sure you're one of those users who doesn't even bother opening an email if you don't recognize - from the title - whether it can help you in some way.

There is a law on the Internet that, in a way, implies that user experience is the key to obtaining better positions in SERPs , good rankings in app stores and higher conversion rates, for example. In email marketing , this is also clear.

If your company becomes a spammer, it will tell its audience that it cannot be relevant or meet their demands. And, much worse than that, it is a factor that negatively interferes with the brand experience.

However, if your marketing emails are really well-written and full of relevant, high-quality information, meet the audience's expectations, and are appropriate for the recipient's perspective, your company will be recognized as a potential solution. That way, they will look for you when they need to purchase any product or service you have available.

Some people even agree to receive offers from "related companies" and click the checkbox when they agree to the terms and conditions of data use.

But as soon as they receive an unwanted message or an email that does not meet their expectations, they tend to request to unsubscribe from the mailing.

Your company may have problems with its email marketing service provider
The company you hired to automate your email marketing strategy will not trust you either, and this can be detrimental to your results. Providers that operate in this segment, such as HubSpot or MailChimp, are extremely strict about the legitimacy of the email marketing database.

If you are caught using a purchased and unreliable list, your reach will surely be affected and you may even be banned from the platform. It is easy to monitor the quality of lists, especially by those companies that handle a large amount of data on a daily basis.

Simply check the number of people who have requested to unsubscribe from the newsletter or who have marked the sent correspondence as spam. In some cases, in addition to closing your account and fining your company, the service provider can still take legal action, especially if they include this clause in the contract, as this can mitigate any malicious attempts on the part of the contractor.

Other companies will use the same list as you
Isn't it annoying to know that your potential customers are subject to receiving content similar to yours if your competitors buy the same list as you? When you buy an email marketing database, other people can send similar mailings without the user's request, and this can further damage the perception of your brand.

Plus, they won't respond as much as they would if they had signed up for emails organically. It also interferes with the results you're hoping for from your strategy.

Therefore, subscribers will ignore it and your results will be completely different from what you planned to achieve. If the objective of the strategy is to encourage the action of the leads so that they become a captive audience of your business and, in the future, acquire a product or service associated with your brand, you will need to do much more than buy an email marketing list to send material.

Your organization may have problems with data protection legislation
Compliance is a critical aspect of any business and refers to the ability of companies to meet the requirements of regulatory bodies, which control the suitability of countless organizations for confidentiality, integrity and other elements on which information security is based.

Purchasing a database for email marketing is, in itself, morally wrong. After all, you are acquiring a list of confidential information from people who have not authorized this process; this constitutes a violation of the privacy and individuality of users in various laws for the protection of personal data of third parties.

This practice can also result in legal impositions and punishments through the application of heavy fines. Professionals planning email marketing strategies must know that consent is the key to complying with any legal framework.

What to do to create a solid email marketing strategy and get your own database?
Strategies to achieve organic results are always the best option to gain authority and make sales in the long term. Therefore, there are good practices to create a truly legitimate email marketing database and, consequently, cause more conversions.

Prioritize the characteristics of your audience
Put your audience first, even before asking people to subscribe to your newsletter. To do this, focus on the characteristics of your Buyer Persona and discover which touchpoints are conducive to creating a more harmonious and trustworthy relationship.

Provide valuable content in exchange for subscriptions.
To do this, you’ll need Content Marketing and knowledge of tactics that can help you get more subscribers to your email marketing database. But the main idea here is to give before you receive: provide valuable marketing pieces for your audience’s onboarding experience .

They reinforce your brand authority and can be customized for each touchpoint with your company. Create discount and loyalty campaigns, offer free ebooks, webinars and courses before asking them to stay in touch via newsletter or purchase your products or services.

Adherence to these strategies can serve as an indicator for you to classify lists of already registered users, for example.

Categorize and segment your list as much as you can
Speaking of sorting, you should know that even after providing the data to subscribe to newsletters, the user may tend to be dissatisfied with the content you have offered. Therefore, segment your lists according to each observed need, demographic and behavior.

Email marketing works, but people have to want to open your emails and then move through the conversion funnel. If your emails aren’t relevant, you’ll never make progress in your strategy. But if you’re creating valuable content without seeing results, you may have poorly segmented lists; while some personas discard certain types of pieces, others may love them.

Create a section on your page to invite users to subscribe
It is possible to facilitate user access to the sections where they can subscribe to your newsletters and other email marketing strategies, without compromising the pop-up access experience. By the way, they also significantly affect the relevance of the site in search engines.

Don't hide opt-in boxes or place them in places where the user may feel that their reading of the content is affected. Prioritize the slider or integrated forms in strategic sections.

Create engaging content with CTAs to subscribe to newsletters
In addition to the areas we highlighted above, as a good option to create user registration boxes, you can also add this practice to your content strategy.

This way, the registration request will be more natural in the brand's contact with users.

How can you do this? Create articles (blog posts) on broader topics, but always in your area of ​​expertise, with the ability to offer relevant information for the initial stages of your consumer’s journey. At the end, add a CTA (call to action) to request registration.

By doing so, you will gradually become an authority on the products, services or information you share. It also encourages the lead to maintain contact with your brand.

Whenever this consumer identifies a demand related to your niche, they will remember your brand. With that, they will look for your company before any other. In addition, they will feel more comfortable providing their personal data, including email, to promote your email marketing strategies and move forward with conversions.

By creating useful and relevant content for your buyer persona, you increase your company’s ability to attract a steady stream of highly qualified leads. They will be better able to consent to receiving your materials.

Over time, you'll find that you've created your own email marketing database. It will contain qualified leads who are much more likely to stay in touch with your brand and move through the sales funnel.

Buying ready-made packages may seem like an easy way to start your email marketing. But the reality is that the risks you take and the meager results you will get will never justify this investment.