Questions you need to ask before you buy a UK business email database

A comprehensive, accurate, and GPDR-compliant email list is a favourite lead generation tool for B2B marketers in the United Kingdom, because of the level of access it gives them to potential customers.

What is the first thing you do when you pick up your phone or tablet in the morning? If you are anything like the 58% of those surveyed by Optinmonster, the first thing you do is to check your emails.

Most marketers agree that email marketing campaigns are a cost-effective way to generate leads and sales in a place that customers are guaranteed to look every day – their inbox.

Research backs this up.

McKinsey found that email is up to 40 times more effective than social media for helping businesses to convert leads into customers. Furthermore, in a 2018 study, marketers said that for every £1 they spend on email marketing, they get £43 back.

Why are B2B mailing lists so profitable?

There are many reasons that B2B companies buy targeted email lists and use email marketing to get leads and close sales.

Cost effective

It is cheaper to run email marketing campaigns than many other forms of advertising.

This is because there are no costs for printing or advertising space and you have the ability to send out as many messages as you like for no extra cost. 

Email also has a great return on investment and there are many email service providers who offer a free service for lower-volume mailouts.

Generates inbound sales calls

Emails sent from marketing databases you buy in are an easy way to gather leads and close sales because they are immediate yet not time-pressured. 

Where a cold call can feel pushy, email allows a potential customer to take their time and read your message when they are ready.

Ending an email with a call-to-action which suggests a time to call, leaves phone numbers for your own sales team or asks questions will make customers more inclined to phone for further information.

Measurable and allows you to test before sending

With a UK business email database, you can personalise and test your direct marketing messages before sending them out en masse.

A/B testing of subject lines and headlines can help you to refine your campaign and work out which approach is the most effective.

Once you have sent a B2B email marketing campaign , you can measure its results via analytics software giving you an easy way of understanding how well you have performed.

Benefits of buying email lists

Why would you buy a targeted UK email list instead of building your own business database?

The data that you collect directly from customers when they subscribe to your email newsletter or leave their details for you on your apps and website is called first party data . 

This is the most valuable tool at your disposal for marketing and market research but it takes a long time to build a large-enough database to run meaningful campaigns.

It makes sense to buy a UK business email list if you:

• are a new business without any existing customers,
• are looking to branch out into a new market, or
• want to expand your business to a lot of people quickly.

Fast data collection

It takes time to build a substantial UK mailing list and even longer to divide your list for successful email marketing campaigns to specific target audiences you want to sell to. 

A bought-in targeted email database cuts the time it takes to build your list of email addresses and start marketing from months to minutes.

Over time as you get to know your new contacts you can flesh out the database with insights about decision-maker but purchased data is an efficient starting point.

Quickly expand into a new market

Changing locations, branching into new sectors, or targeting a wider audience means a whole lot of research. 

On top of this your team will be working hard to get things put into place for your expansion as well as performing their existing jobs.

There is usually little time or manpower left for finding and introducing yourself to contacts in this new market. You can save time and move more quickly into your chosen area by purchasing a B2B email list.

Questions to ask when buying email lists

How often do you update your marketing data?

Regularly updating data ensures the accuracy and therefore the relevance of the email list to the decision maker. 

More Than Words performs regular data cleaning and updates on all of our databases to ensure that they provide the most realistic and up-to-date information available at the time of purchase.

What is your deliverability rate on your UK business email database?

It is almost impossible to guarantee 100% deliverability from any email list, even those you build yourself. Your provider should be able to offer a guarantee that the majority of emails you send will reach their intended target.

A carefully chosen More Than Words database ensures that the right decision makers in the right companies receive your emails making it more likely that they will attract interest.

Currently, we can guarantee up to 85% deliverability across our databases.

How much do you charge for bespoke data from your UK email database?

UK B2B email lists prices vary significantly. Some B2B data providers require customers to purchase entire databases, meaning that UK companies take on contact details they neither want nor require.

This often has negative effects on their email campaigns as their response rates drop due to campaigning to contacts that have no need for their product or service.

A More Than Words email database is completely customised to your wants and needs allowing you to choose contacts based on the company name or type of business most commercially important to you. 

The cost of an email list can vary depending on the sectors you are targeting and the volume you are purchasing.

How are your mailing lists targeted?

If you purchase a list it is important to find one that is highly-targeted. A mailing list that features 500,000 entries for ‘sales manager’ might bring you one sales lead.

But a mailing list that features 5,000 ‘sales managers at a mid-sized tech company in London, with mobile number’ is likely to generate a far better response rate because your emails will be more relevant to those recipients.

Your More Than Words account manager will walk you through the various categories on our database to help you find a list of contacts that are useful to you.