What is the best way to build your email marketing lists? Organic list building or Third party? This articles shows you how and why organic list building is the way to go.

To begin, let’s be sure to understand the difference:

Third party list building is when you rent a list, purchase a list, or harvest a list.

Organic list building is when you build your own list by inviting interested prospects to subscribe to your list and confirm their interest.

The temptation is to just get a list and start mailing your offer out to everyone on the list. But the reality is that how you build your list and manage your reputation with your list has a major impact on your email marketing success.

When you use third party list building tactics, you are instantly stacking the deck against yourself. Major email service providers take a number of factors in to account when they reject email or route email to the spam folder. These factors include the complaint rate, overall list hygiene (are your addresses bouncing?), and user engagement.

Many email providers make it almost too easy to issue a spam complaint. If your message shows up and someone didn’t request it, or they just don’t like it, they can quickly label the message as spam. This counts against you and makes it even harder to get your message through. If you are sending to a bunch of email addresses that are bouncing, the major email providers are going to count that against you as you are wasting their resources loading their systems down with junk email addresses. And, finally, if your readers are not opening your message or clicking through to your web site, your overall reputation is going to take a hit with the major email providers.

This is why successful email marketers rely on organic list building with double opt-in confirmation.

Other factors that can beef up your email marketing results:

Set Expectations When someone sees your capture page, make sure you are clear about the benefit of joining your list. Tell them what they will receive. Let them know how often you will email them. Keep your message on point.

Get Permission Double opt-in is the best way to make sure you have your reader’s clear permission to email them. It shows respect to your readers and keeps you in compliance with CAN-SPAM, CASL, and GDPR.

Build Relationships When your readers feel they know you, start to like you, and can trust you, they are much more likely to buy from you when they make their purchasing decision. Always add value in your email marketing messages. The relationships you build can translate to successful business for years to come.