7 Reasons to Never Use Free Email Marketing Lists.

People, don’t ever get hooked into getting or using free email marketing lists. There’s nothing but garbage in them and I will give you 7 reasons on why this is the case.

Email marketing is one area of making money online that is potentially both very profitable, but more likely than not, a huge waste of time. And in the case of getting free lists from third parties, it is almost a 100% guarantee that it will fail. 

Free email marketing lists are a scam! Let me explain why:

Email marketing is one of the most commonly taught (And wrongly taught for that matter) things to people who wish to make money online.

There is a common myth that about the money being in the list that I went over (and debunked) that basically states that people incorrectly believe that simply getting a list means making the money without a problem and this is 100% false. 

Add to this misconception the fact that there are people out there (and businesses) who give away for free and sell their email lists to people, and you add another layer of garbage on top of that.

Suppose I found a website or someone came to me and said they have a list of 10,000 emails they don’t need and want to give away to me for free. I’d either ignore that offer or just tell them “no” and this is because I know the true value of that offer is ZERO. And to explain why all of that illusion of an opportunity equates to ZERO, let these 7 reasons provide the proof:

1) Any email list with any iota of value will never be sold or given away for free, to anyone.

If I had 10,000 leads that had value and were making me money in my online campaigns, I would never sell that, let alone give it away to someone for nothing. That simply does not make sense.

So does it really make sense for someone to simply give away something that has perceived value? No. So if you see anyone trying to give you their leads, assume they are worthless. 

The only time people give away email lists that are in some way legit is when they sell them through solo ads.

2) In some cases, selling email lists this is actually illegal.

Many people opt in to websites with the impression that their information is safe.

Unfortunately, many people who give away free email lists, are also at times people who also promised NEVER to actually do that sort of thing (you know, sharing with other, third parties?). So you may not know that the leads given to you may complain about them getting messages from people they didn’t opt-in to get messages from.

3) You simply do not know the history/value/relevance of the leads.

When you get a blank list of people, you don’t know who they are, what they want, and even if they want to hear from you. That’s usually the case with free email lists.

4) You can have an infinite amount of free leads, but it can still equate to $0.

I often see fake gurus and marketers show off their large base of email subscribers in an effort to try and make you think they know what they’re doing.

Very often these claims are full of hot air because anyone who understands the value of traffic and leads knows that it’s not the quantity that counts, it’s the quality of the lead and the traffic (laser targeted).

If someone tries to present to me that they have 10,000 leads and don’t actually provide proof that this is making them great money, I will assume they are full of it and just bought fake leads, bots or don’t really know how to monetize those 10k leads.

I can literally give you cases where 10 leads I gather can bring me MORE money from a campaign than someone who collects 10k leads the wrong way.

Alex Becker for instance taught me a lot about this particular business and he also explains the value of leads and being the most important component than the number of them you get.

So don’t be fooled by anyone who is trying to give away their leads to you. Again, if it actually had value, they’d never be giving it away.

5) Junk traffic and free lists are synonymous.

Whenever I hear someone has a lot of leads or is trying to give them away to someone for free, I assume most if not all those leads are basically junk traffic, and junk leads, people who will never, ever know who I am or never open my emails.

Again, this goes back to the whole topic or laser targeted traffic being the most important component. Junk traffic, on the other hand is one of the most worthless things anyone seeking to make money online can ever bring to their site.

6) You’ll waste more time trying to monetize junk leads than if you started fresh.

Think of yourself digging through dirt trying to find a jewel, that is basically a great way to explain how tough it is to monetize junk leads and make something happen. I’d much rather you start a fresh new site, a brand new landing page, a brand new sales funnel and build that up so you can actually get REAL, targeted, buyer leads.

There’s time to be spent on this, but at least it’s a legit way to get real, profitable results.

7) It is very foolish to buy leads you didn’t get yourself.

There’s a plethora of reasons I could go into on this particular point itself, but in a nutshell, when you are not in control of the entire sales funnel that brings in a lead, you simply get leads blindly, and that makes marketing to them extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Suppose I started an email list the right way in that I set it up correctly. For example:

1) I created a landing page that gives away a free eBook on 10 free ways to instantly get rid of anxiety (a big niche topic). Oh and here’s 50 more amazing niches.

2) My goal would be to attract leads who SUFFER from anxiety to this landing page, so I can get them to opt-in and get the free eBook.

3) I would then know that any lead who opts in already suffers from this issue and this form of identity would make it easier for me to sell them things, because I would understand their problem.

4) From this standpoint, I have a MILLION more chances to monetize the email list. 

Now compare that to:

Someone gives me their 10k leads for free and I know absolutely nothing about them. Maybe the guy who gave me this said they are interested in health, but what kind of health?

There’s no identification, no filtration, no marketing plan on my part to monetize this, because there’s so many “if’s” going on. This already basically takes me odds of monetizing these leads and puts it at ZERO.

Have I made my case? 

I certainly hope so. I’ve been involved with online marketing for many years and have made and lost money from email marketing, so I know how NOT to do it, and certainly getting free leads is one of the biggest NO’s you could ever do.

So how can I do lead generation correctly?

I have said before that proper email marketing is broken down into 3 stages and it is imperative that each stage be set up properly in order to make it a success. 

Stage 1: Get laser targeted traffic with a specific problem to a landing page. Here’s a case study of me collecting an email list successfully.

Stage 2: Offer the laser targeted traffic FREE resources and value to their problem in exchange for them opt-in.

Stage 3: Send them free, high value messages and only after a couple of them are sent, only then pitch an offer.

Without a doubt, I can tell you that the most important stage is the first 1. That is where all the potential money comes in and frankly, the next 2 stages are optional.

You don’t necessarily have to go the email marketing route, you can even promote products to the same laser targeted audience, but as long as stage 1 is properly selected, that is what really matters. The better the laser targeted traffic/audience, the more odds this can lead to profits.

Don’t even worry about collecting an email list if stage 1 isn’t set up properly, focus on that and for that particular stage to be selected properly, read about this program called Wealthy Affiliate which taught me how to find them, and make money from them.

As for free email lists, I hope the next time you get an offer for getting them, you’ll just delete and flag that offer as spam, because that’s what it is.