Before Buying a Ready-Made Lead List

A business owner who decides to look for new customers is often presented with the same offer: a ready-made list, sorted by sector and city, containing the names, phone numbers and email addresses of thousands of companies. The offer looks attractive; instead of finding the companies to call one by one, they are all ready in a single file.

Once the list arrives, however, the picture can change. Some of the phones do not ring, some of the emails bounce back, and some companies have closed or moved into a different line of work. In this article we look at the problems often seen in ready-made lists, the questions that can be asked before buying a list, the difference of building your own list and how first contact can be made.

Common Problems with Ready-Made Lists

The problem with ready-made lists often comes not from the list itself but from how and when it was prepared. The buyer usually notices this only after starting to use the list.

Outdated or incorrect information

Businesses move, change their phone numbers, close or change hands. Even if a list is correct on the day it is prepared, it goes out of date over time. If it is not known when the list was prepared, it is also not known how much of the information in it is still valid.

The same list sold to more than one buyer

Ready-made lists are usually prepared not for a single buyer but for many buyers. In this case, the companies on the list can receive similar messages from different sellers in the same period. A company may find it hard to tell your message apart from the others.

Data from an unclear source

Where the information in the list was collected and whether the people are aware that this information is being shared are often not stated. Contacting people with data from an unclear source can both weaken trust in the company's eyes and leave you in an uncertain legal position.

Bounced emails

Emails sent to invalid addresses bounce back. When the number of bounced emails grows, email services may start to see the sending address as suspicious, and the likelihood of your later emails landing in the spam folder instead of the inbox can increase. This can create a risk not only for the list but also for your daily correspondence with your customers.

Questions to Ask Before Buying a List

If you still decide to buy a list, asking a few questions before buying can help you see in advance what you will face. The table below gathers these questions and why the answer matters.

If clear answers to these questions cannot be obtained, it may be healthier to weigh from the start how useful the list will be for you.

A Short Note on the Legal Side

There are consent and notice rules on processing personal data and sending commercial electronic messages. For sole proprietorships, company information can also count as personal data. How these rules apply to your situation can vary with the type of your business and the way you communicate.

This article does not contain a legal assessment. Before buying a list or starting bulk communication, we recommend that you consult a lawyer about your own situation.

The Difference of Building Your Own List

Building your own list instead of buying a ready-made one can take more effort, but it brings some differences. Most importantly, you decide what the list is prepared for and for whom.

Target sector and region are your choice

In a ready-made list, the sector definition is usually broad. In your own list you can choose only the sector and region you want to reach: for example, only the accounting firms in a certain district instead of all offices. The list gets smaller, but each row is closer to your business.

Current and publicly available business information

Businesses' entries on maps and the contact details they publish on their own websites are information the business itself shares publicly. When you build the list from these sources at the moment you need it, the information is that day's information. Information being publicly available does not mean it can be used for any purpose; consent and notice rules apply here too.

The list stays in your own table

A list you build yourself is not sold to anyone else and stays in your own table. In the same table you can also keep which company you called, whom you wrote to and what kind of reply you received. This can reduce the need to run sales tracking in a separate place. To keep companies and conversation history in one place, you can also look at our CRM and customer tracking systems page.

The hard part of building your own list is finding the companies one by one and collecting their details. Lead Finder Automation was designed to take on this part: you enter the sector and location, the system finds the businesses, looks for an email address on those that have a website and writes the results to your own table. The system does not sell ready-made lists; the list is created in your account, through your own search.

How First Contact Can Be Made

Wherever the list comes from, how the first message is written can affect the chance of getting a reply. The difference between a general message sent in bulk and a message written to the person is often clear to the reader in the first line.

Write to the person

In the message, state the company's name and why you are writing to it in particular. A single sentence showing that you know what the company does can set the message apart from a text sent in bulk.

A single, short message

In the first message, briefly explain what you offer and ask a single question. Instead of a long promotional text, a message the other side can easily reply to can increase the chance of being read. Not insisting if no reply comes is also a choice; an interested company usually replies to the first message.

Leave a way out

Adding a sentence such as "if you are not interested, I will not write again" at the end of the message can show respect for the other side and make it easier to remove from the list a person who does not want contact. Not writing again to a person who says they do not want it is a right step both for the relationship and for consent rules.

As first contact emails multiply, organising the replies that come in can also become a separate task. For sorting and tracking incoming emails, you can look at our email management automation page.

Summary

A ready-made lead list can look like a quick start, but it can carry problems such as outdated information, the same list being sold to many buyers, data from an unclear source and bounced emails. If you decide to buy a list, asking in advance about the source of the data, how current it is and who it has been sold to can help you. When you build your own list, you choose the target sector and region and work in your own table with current, publicly available information. Wherever the list comes from, a first message that is personal, short and leaves a way out can be a healthier start. As for the legal rules, it is advisable to consult a lawyer about your own situation.

Frequently Asked Questions