# Purchasing E-mail/regular mail marketing lists



## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Has anyone here ever thought of or actually purchased an email/regular mail marketing list? I was thinking about purchasing a list of newly engaged couples for our photography business, and i have no idea what the cost of those are. 

Also, if you DID use it, did you get a decent response from it? Did you offer a discount if the person used to email code from it??


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## eccApparel (Dec 8, 2008)

I've never purchased an email list, but I have had a friend purchase and use one. He said it was pretty much worthless. He had a lot of opt-outs and not so happy people from it. If you do buy a list make sure you research the company who supplies the list. I've heard that some can be pretty shady.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

well, i know that E-MAIL lists can be, but mailing lists WITH a wedding date should be rather legit, UNLESS they are completely making them up.. but yea, i have researched and i found two companies who are known in the wedding industry for this type of thing.. So they are good leads. I was just wondering how many leads turn into sales


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## iwearyourshirt (Dec 16, 2008)

Why not just hit up communities focused on weddings and get involved? I think email lists are a waste of money, none of them are ever tailored to your company or business.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

we are going to bridal shows, getting pricing on local magazines and such. We actually got freelanced to submit content to a community newspaper about photography and weddings. Its all pretty good.

Also, i am MOSTLY interested in physical mailers. Photography is a big time visual thing. I got 1000 postcards printing. I will be handing them out at our bridal shows but we wanted to send out a bunch of mailers to local people. 

I started making my own list by going to the newspaper's websites, viewing the recently engaged, and then looking them up in the whitepages. It does work. My mom used to sell wedding invitations and get many sales from doing that.. Mailers can work in those types of situations. I just wanted to know about purchasing lists.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

For what it is worth...with mail...if it looks like ads...or I do not know the sender...it goes straight to recycle. On email...if I do not know the sender or the subject is foreign to me...I delete w/o opening. Obviously I do not use either...


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

well, the ONE thing that i do remember when getting prepared for my wedding was getting LOADS of mailers HOWEVER i do know that one difference with that particular time in my life was, i was trying to read EVERYTHING i could about the local vendors, so at that point, i welcomed the postcards

I guess that my "business" is just a little too different from the basic t-shirt business. I am promoting wedding photography and selling printed items as an addon to create more income..


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## eccApparel (Dec 8, 2008)

Yeah, I think with physical mailing lists your going to get better lists. The good thing about postcards are nobody has a choice of whether or not they want to open it. The message is on the outside. They should work, but you'll need to do more than one mailing to get your message through


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yea, i understand that. We want to see how many we hand out, and then we do get the names and addresses of EVERY bride who attends the bridal event, so those people will automatically get TWO. 

We are doing everything we can to make our booth stand out. We have a verticle and horizontal banner, an large LCD screen that will display a slide show, a bunch of pre-made wedding books for people to look through, and the postcards.. I WISH i was able to get those darn keychain picture frames printed, but it just wasnt cost effective.. But so far so good..


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## Binary01 (Jun 2, 2007)

just make small flyers and had out a business card also. i hate large flyers that i cant fit in my pocket so in turn i toss out.

i wouldnt waste money on mailers/spam/etc. just go to the local super markets and pass out flyers or go to the mall and hangout by the dress stores.

if you already have done photos, i would set up a blog and maybe see if you can do a write up on each couple/wedding you took pics at. this could help with newbies getting familiar with your style/pics and might see that your a down to earth person.

b


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

I would put the money into the keychains and postcards before a email list. We sent out a newsletter to 15,000 of our customers (that was our free email limit) and I can't even tell you how many came back out of office replies, invalid address, you're not on the approved list and etc. These were our customers who created accounts and asked to receive newsletters from us. In the end there wasn't a noticeable bump in sales where ppl rushed to the site after I sent it. Even of the ones that didn't get bounced back they could have gone straight to a spam folder. In my case it didn't cost me anything but a few minutes to write an email.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yea, i will probably just buy a regular mail list to send things out on, PLUS the list that i get from the bridal shows. 

As far as just blindly handing things out.. I dont think i will do that. It seems like a waste unless you are at a targetted place, and then, just standing and handing them out seems silly. We put a few stacks at David's Bridal, ect.. but USUALLY brides who are picking out their dress already picked a photographer

We have a complete website with a portfolio, blog, and ecommerce. That is not an issue. We are also working really hard to get to page one of google for the terms "connecticut wedding photographer" but thats tough work.. which is WHY we want to do other things to get people to notice us..


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

You don't want to be that guy that sends out a bunch of spam.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yea, but it will not be spam. Spam is mail that is sent out that is untargetted to anyone in particular. The place that i WOULD purchase the email addresses and regular addresses from would get their lists of couples and wedding dates from places where these people actually GIVE that information in order to get some mailings and such.


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## Binary01 (Jun 2, 2007)

just toss up a few posts on craigslist... sometimes the ranking for google searches will come up on the first page..

b


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## iwearyourshirt (Dec 16, 2008)

lindsayanng said:


> yea, i will probably just buy a regular mail list to send things out on, PLUS the list that i get from the bridal shows.
> 
> As far as just blindly handing things out.. I dont think i will do that. It seems like a waste unless you are at a targetted place, and then, just standing and handing them out seems silly. We put a few stacks at David's Bridal, ect.. but USUALLY brides who are picking out their dress already picked a photographer
> 
> We have a complete website with a portfolio, blog, and ecommerce. That is not an issue. We are also working really hard to get to page one of google for the terms "connecticut wedding photographer" but thats tough work.. which is WHY we want to do other things to get people to notice us..


What's your current website, maybe I can give you some pointers on getting your search rankings up? Seems like there is a good bit of competition in your field, but there aren't any listings for Google Maps that show up, nor are there any Yahoo Answer results - two areas where you could get ahead.


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## Art2Shirt (Dec 17, 2008)

Becareful
Spam can be considered sending e-mail to anyone that you do not have an existing business relationship with(such as purchasing from you before)

I build my list from prior purchases and a sign up for newsletter box on the site, The latter is referred to as opt-in and you cannot be accused of spam.

I'm no expert but be very careful as the fines are ungodly high if someone makes an issue


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

A lot of what you do is about networking. Every caterer, party planner, wedding hotel and wedding venue in your city should know who you are and have some of your postcards/brochures handy. 

They should also have a 4 X 4 inch post-it note cube on their desk with your name, logo and phone number plastered on the side. Who do you know that throws/gives these away when they get one? Who do you know that doesn't use them?

Seems to me the only mailing list you should be buying is one from the licensing department at the city/county office. More and more, this information can also be obtained online.

As to actual mailings, I would do postcards with the most glossy high rez wedding portrait you have and use that. Forget about emails. The licensing departments don't ask for one anyway.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

I'm not saying that we dont do a LOT of networking. We work with a wedding event planner in NY and we have on in Rhode Island. We have done a few high profile weddings (one on a manhattan roof top and one at the RI naval base) We also did a bunch of Bridal Couture fashion shows, one in particular at the Barclay in NYC for the designer of White Chocolate label. 

Craigslist is NOT really a good option for us at the moment. If you look on craigslist for wedding photographers, you will see that they are either the cheap of the cheap BAD photographers, or people just starting out.. AND if you advertise on craigslist, we found that EVERYONE that finds you on there is expecting a super deal. We are separating ourself from the basic wedding photographers and markieting ourselves as a more desirbale company, not the typical photog. 

I probably am going to get about buying emails and just send out the postcards to people, but i still am probably going to buy an actual mailing list. The postcards are definitely appealing. They have good images and enough info that its useful but not overbearing. We wanted the images to be the best thing on there. 

There has been a lot of optimization with SEO friendly URLs, but i know that we need to do more alt tags on all of the images. 

We did add our site to the google maps business directory, but i think it takes a while to come up. I will do the same for yahoo. 

I also LOVE the idea of sticky notes. I'm going to go and price those out. Thanks


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## EnMartian (Feb 14, 2008)

We have done some work with InfoUSA for mailing lists. They seemed to have a pretty extensive array of lists and their price was fairly reasonable. The return rate is never great on these kinds of things. If you get a 1 or 2 percent return rate you've done really well. If you get a 5% return rate you've done phenomenally well. 

We don't tend to do a lot of direct mail because of the response rate, but InfoUSA seemed to be pretty knowledgeable and I didn't get the sense that they were trying to sell us a list that was useless.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Be careful on traditional mailing lists. The lists you need have a shelf life, like milk. Traditional lists do not, so there could be entries in them that are years old.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yea, i would ONLY purchase from wedding specialist list makers, and there are some out there... I wouldnt send out a wedding photography card to an 85 year old couple that has been married for 60 years, or even a 28 year old couple that got married last year. It would be a very specific, targetted list.


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## Girlzndollz (Oct 3, 2007)

lindsayanng said:


> yea, i will probably just buy a regular mail list to send things out on, PLUS the list that i get from the bridal shows.
> 
> As far as just blindly handing things out.. I dont think i will do that. It seems like a waste unless you are at a targetted place, and then, just standing and handing them out seems silly. We put a few stacks at David's Bridal, ect.. but USUALLY brides who are picking out their dress already picked a photographer


 
Hi Lindsay, 

When we got engaged the very first place we went to was to book the church - so possibly working with your local parishes will be a way to get exposure right out of the starting gate. 

A few cards on the desk of the person that fills in the date book might be nice, as well, maybe a small donation, as they always welcome the support. 

Possibly some kind of giveaway (ex: free 8x10 if booked), contest, or percent off, for one lucky couple of each pre-cana class, get your name in front of them all as one couple wins the prize they all via for.

The very next place we went to was the Hall - to book the coordinating date. At that time, we did not have the photographer. That came next. Our hall was a banquet place, with accomodations on site. Some couples frequent places like that prior to engagement, so maybe your cards at some nice hotels, etc. 

Also, many young single couples who become marriage minded also go out frequently, and end up at diners at the end of the night. Getting your ads into some of the nicer diners in affluent areas might attract the same young singles that you are looking for as clients as their relationship matures. 

I would focus some attention in that directing if you are looking for brides early on in the game. 

By the time I got to my dress, the church, hall, photographer, limo and even the DJ were done. Those are in shorter supply, while dresses take 8 months on avg to order. (Somewhere around there for me it was, so it was more important I book the others first.)

Hope this helps, from one bride to another, we both have been thru it. But it goes a bit diff for each. Good luck to you guys.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Thanks so much Girlz.. I had a similar experience.. We do actually have an "official photographer" status with one of the local wedding "factories" around here which helps.. but there are other photographers who claimed all the other places.. 

Churches are a great idea, since we are not religious, it wasnt something that came into my head. We got married outside with a friend presiding as an ordained minister of the universal life church 

I think the bridal fair will be fun though. I mean, i would LOVE to talk to brides and see what THEY want..


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## Girlzndollz (Oct 3, 2007)

Yeah, churches churn out some big biz each year in the wedding factory. Wasn't cheap for us to get married in one. It could be a hidden gem in the race to market. Good luck, hope that avenue turns out a good stream of steady work for you. Good luck with the others ideas as well.


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