B2B card & selling mailing lists - long time no post, any ideas?

[Diana]

Hi all! Some of you will remember me - reviving my interest in various ideas Bob/Jake has shared. (I've bought everything he's written!)

There seems to be interest here in B2B marketing, so I wondered if anyone has focused on that. Probably 3500 businesses in my area if I exclude the university/colleges (which have their own accounting, IT, maintenance people etc.)

I also would like to know if anyone has found a way to sell mailing lists - I don't thinkf you could do that with infofree. Is there a place that WILL let you? Or can you sell printed mailing labels? I think thats what the local Chamber of Commerce does - you can buy mailing labels of Chamber members, but they will only sell the list to fellow Chamber members.

If this post belongs in another thread by all means go ahead & move it - need to catch up on what all the strategies are again! And I'm sure y'all have new stuff...

But right now B2B is my focus, any bright ideas???

Diana

[Bob Ross]

I was wondering where the heck you were Diana. Did you know I emailed all your email addresses I had and even called you a few times when I was getting spammed by one of your emails (obviously hacked!)?

[Diana]

Hmm, Jake, I do get your emails, at least the ones attached with any mailing lists - I know I bought something from you recently! I apologize.

For whatever reason - my failings, too much competition, ignorant business owners - as you may recall, I only got a couple of 9x12 cards out and could not fill another 10K mailing or a 2.5K targeted mailing. So I got frustrated and pretty much gave up - even tried to sell my ShowMePostcards.com site (but didn't, it's still up!)

In the last 6-12 months I've been making other changes to my business - doing more web consulting than actual web design (sort of "second opinions" on websites) and more online retail selling.

However, I still hear of/about business owners who want to reach OTHER business owners - and there's no good way to do that. (Unless you're a Chamber member and rent that list.) And I kept the names of people who'd told me, back when I was presenting the original card, to let them know if I ever did a B2B card.

A conversation about meeting business people where they're at and giving them what they WANT (THEN maybe educating them as to what they really need!) has got me thinking again about the B2B card model.

So I was hoping someone has been doing that and might have input to share. Also wondered if anyone had found a list broker who'd let you sell names or at least sell printed mailing labels.

Diana

[Mr Subtle]

However, I still hear of/about business owners who want to reach OTHER business owners - and there's no good way to do that. (Unless you're a Chamber member and rent that list.)
Lots of places sell business lists besides the Chamber. Off the top of my head Melissa Data has a reseller program which offers between a 35-50% discount (based on quarterly sales volume). (They even have a co-op program... $650 reimbursement on postage... not sure how that works.)

[Diana]

Okay just for other people's benefit who might be interested - I looked at both Melissa Data & Leads Please for businesses in my city. Leads Please gave me more names (6965) even though I excluded categories like "Public Administration" and it was 12cents/lead if I bought all of them, one-time use.

Melissa Data gave me 4767 leads - if I wanted to exclude some of them I'd have to call - and there, you paid for how many times you wanted to use the list. So to use it once it was about 10cents/lead - to use it 5 times it was 31cents/lead. However you wouldn't pay in advance to use it more than once unless you KNEW you were going to...

I CAN sell the leads OR mailing labels.

How much would y'all tack on for a profit - say 20cents/name instead of 10 cents just to mail a list to someone? What kind of disclaimer could you make about how clean the list is? Wonder how you'd keep the business owner from using the list more times than you paid for, though.

Now say I wanted to sell mailing labels.

I buy 5000 leads for about $500. It'd be about $30 if I bought 5000 mailing labels at Amazon. Then of course I'd have to print 'em - or have them printed, but I have no idea how much that'd cost - can't imagine printing 5000 on my little inkjet though! Could ask a local printer. Then I'd have to tack a profit on...

Diana
PS Any of this seem like a viable model?
PPS I wonder how much a local printer charges for something like this - first, I wonder if they'd just sell/print out a list. Second if they said "Well we'll print the postcards and mail them TOO..." wonder what prices would be. Right now I'm just kinda wondering how much a list is by itself - either as a .csv file or printed onto mailing labels.

[Zenyatta]

Hi Diana,

Look on Fiverr. In less than 5 mintues I found a source for 20K to 40K business leads by state for only $5. I also saw people that will take your csv list and get it properly formatted for labels to print or have someone else print. Below is the ad for 20K+ business leads by state for $5.

50 States (in the USA, of course), full contact information of well over 20,000+ B2B Leads (some states have over 40,000, some less than 20,000).

This lists has the following information for B2B (Business) Leads:

Company Name
Company Address
Telephone number
Fax number
Email
Website
Contact name (for most businesses)
Business category


When purchasing gig you need to specify which state you want the leads from! That's it!

Cheers & Good Luck,
Zen

[Diana]

Yikes Zen - that's cheap, although I do wonder how current the data is. And wonder if you can modify it a bit - like by certain cities, or other demographic data... thanks, will have to look at it!

[Vikuna]

Question is, does the Fiverr seller have the rights to sell them, I'd highly doubt it but...

Eva

[Diana]

Right. I was under the impression that the big mailing list companies "seed" their lists so they can track misuse. Not sure if that's true or not.

[Mister Natural]

Right. I was under the impression that the big mailing list companies "seed" their lists so they can track misuse. Not sure if that's true or not.


Are we talking brick and mortar addresses?

How in the world can some list company seed their list and lay claim to my business address for "Poodle Washing" and monitor whether or not I get a piece of marketing mail?

Now email lists,,,,, that's another story. List brokers can seed list of emails with their own email addresses, and then see what shows up and from where.


Hello Diana ,,, welcome back

[seattlethomas]

How in the world can some list company seed their list and lay claim to my business address for "Poodle Washing" and monitor whether or not I get a piece of marketing mail?


They will include a fake business address into the list they sell to you. They have control over that "fake" address and when you send more than a contracted number of pieces,
they will be able to catch you :-)

If you send different pieces (different advertising clients), it would be harder for them to recognize if it's sent by you. However, they often only use EACH fake address once.
So, if you send 5 different pieces, they will know. Usually addresses look something like this:

ABC Co.

2535 Main Street
Suite A-235 (last three digits are code #s for each list sold)
San Diego, CA 12123

All mail will go to

Any Company name
2535 Main Street
Suite A
San Diego, CA 12123


Thomas

[Mister Natural]

Thanks Thomas,
I see they're using mail / suite boxes at a UPS type of mailbox store.
Learned something new today.
Pretty Sneaky.
I would remove all those suite boxes then mail the crap out of them.

[Vikuna]

Thanks Thomas,
I see they're using mail / suite boxes at a UPS type of mailbox store.
Learned something new today.
Pretty Sneaky.
I would remove all those suite boxes then mail the crap out of them.

That is if YOU have the control of the list. Selling multiple list with restrictions can be way complicated and EXPENSIVE not to being worth the hassle and worry of getting caught. Leave it alone I would say, Eva

[Zenyatta]

If you buy the list from the Fiverr gig not the original list selling business they would not have a contract with you. They would go after the person on Fiverr that they originally sold the list to since they have the signed contract with. Most of the brick and mortar business lead lists can be compiled at the library from public records like Contacts Influential anyway, if one had the time and inclination.