Building Opt-In Lists - What is a Prospect List?

In every industry, one of the most important marketing tools is the prospect list. Offline, this list is simply a database of names with contact info, compiled from various sources as people or companies interested in a particular topic and targeted to the buyer demographics of the company planning to use the list. Thus you have prospect lists for real estate, consumer products, advertising, steel fabrication, etc. Much of the commercial e-mail homeowners receive each day is sent to prospect lists compiled, rented or bought from list services that specialize in creating prospect lists for each and every niche.

Online, however, the rules are very different. Whereas anyone and everyone can mail you a flyer in the physical world, in the digital world it's necessary for the sender to either have a previously-established business relationship with you or to have received your permission to e-mail you with commercial messages. Sending bulk unsolicited commercial e-mails (BUCE) is known as SPAM, and spammers can have their lists deleted, their sites removed and face civil and criminal prosecution in most developed countries.

As a result, in online marketing a targeted prospect list is referred to as an opt-in list. And as an extra precaution, online prospect lists are almost always double opt-in, meaning the prospect has filled in a form requesting information and then confirmed their intention through a link in the first e-mail they're sent. Failing to click that confirmation link means they won't be added to the prospect lists, won't be sent any further e-mails but also won't receive the information they signed up for.

To those first coming online this extra step may seem redundant or even annoying - they told you they wanted the information so why didn't you just send it? The double opt-in system developed to protect the consumer, since anyone could simply go around entering other people's e-mail addresses and the owner of that address would start receiving commercial e-mails they hadn't authorized. By sending an e-mail asking once again for permission to each address submitted, the marketers can be assured they're building targeted prospect lists of interested persons only - which is a much more valuable prospect list anyway since everyone on it can be considered a 'warm' prospect, as opposed to cold-calling in the offline world.

Another point of contention in the digital universe is list services or opt-in co-registration services. While the operators of these services say it's totally legitimate because each subscriber double-opted-in for more information, detractors say it's still spam to send to them because they didn't give YOU permission to e-mail them, but instead to the owner of the site they signed up on. Also, some services sell co-registration leads to a number of marketers, resulting in the prospect getting marketing messages from a number of sources even though they only filled out one form on one site.

So while your targeted prospect lists, or opt-in lists, are the lifeblood of your online marketing it's important to build opt-in lists yourself, through your own efforts or through ads run on busy sites, ads that are specific just to building your own prospect lists. As you become more experienced in your online marketing you'll discover other more advanced ways to build prospect lists, but be sure you've learned the ropes of the business and are cognizant of the applicable laws before expanding into these other promotional endeavors.

Marketing mentor and speaker Doug Champigny is a world-famous online marketer with a major online presence who often appears live onstage at marketing seminars, conferences, conventions and workshops around North America. With more than 35 years of online and offline marketing experience, Doug Champigny is uniquely qualified to teach you how to succeed in online marketing through his Internet Marketing Coaching and his Affiliate Marketing Coaching programs. Doug created both of these programs himself through his PowerStart Marketing division, and gives his students direct access to him and his vast wealth of marketing knowledge both during their course and afterwards. Give your marketing the PowerStart it needs today - enroll now!