At some point in our lives we all have a financial decision to make regarding where to live. Most of us gravitate towards the American dream of home ownership; however, is buying the best option? The decision is personal.
Similarly, we all have the same decision when launching a marketing campaign for our products and or services. Do we buy the data to own or are there other options and what is the best option?
When you’re looking for a home and when you’re wanting to grow your markeitng database there are three options to choose from:
- Build
- Buy
- Rent
To determine which is the best option for you, we’ve performed a Ben Franklin decision making pros and cons list:
| Option | Usage Rights | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | Multiple use; send as much as you want but be cautious about list fatigue | Slower to acquire; you own all data | More expensive; recommend only if you use the data more than three times |
| Buy | One or multiple use; you send the email and abide by the usage contract; you own the responses | Fast turnaround time; depending on contract terms you can own the data | Lower upfront costs; data hygiene maybe a concern as compiled files are often outdated. Data decays on average of 2 to 4% per month (source Harte Hanks) |
| Rent | One time use; the list owner sends the email; you own the responses | Fast turnaround time; normally a onetime use; some list sources allow year licenses | Lower upfront costs; only own the responses |
After understanding your options, every evaluation of where to call home or acquiring marketing data requires investigating the costs and potential vendors. To help your evaluation, we’ve researched the costs and provided some vendors to consider.
Build – Cost is $20 to $50 per contact, which includes identifying the target companies and the right role based contact. If you already know the companies, the cost to gather contacts is between $7 to $20 per record. Most vendors will provide an email and guarantee record accuracy, meaning if the data is bad they will replace it with new information or another contact. For gathering contacts on a pay for performance basis companies to consider are ReachForce, ReadyContacts and Target250.
Buy – Cost ranges from $.10 to $4 per source depending on the type of information you’d like to obtain. Buying email address records have the highest cost as the demand is high and the supply is controlled by those willing to sell their email names. Sources include: infoUSA; Jigsaw; Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Marketing Services, Zoominfo, Harte Hanks, among many others.
Rent – Overall a lower cost than buying data for unlimited use. Cost to rent is usually between $.10 and $1. Worldata publishes an annual list price index. For a complete list of sources to rent from you can subscribe to the SRDS or call your friendly list broker. We often use Media Shark as they provide us and our clients with results expectations.
Whether considering the purchase of a home or where to get data for your marketing efforts, there are multiple options to consider. To make the right choice, build, buy or rent, evaluate your database building goals and determine how often the data will be used to make the most practical choice for you.
If you have additional suggestions of how to determine which options are best: Build, Buy, or Rent, comment on the blog below.
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