List Building - What's the Difference Between a Lead and a Subscriber?

People are often talking about leads. I got 500 leads from XYZ or I got a new lead here, there, who knows? But let me tell you, there's a HUGE difference between a lead and a subscriber.

First, when you buy leads, you're buying a bunch of junk. Those people are nothing more than names and email addresses. They don't know you. They don't care about you, and you've just wasted a pile of money.

Why?

Because even if the list of people double opted-in somewhere, as some lead generation services tell you, they didn't opt-in for you. So why's that different from co-registration?

With co-registration, you can describe your newsletter, ebook, offer, etc. That description is placed on a page---maybe a pop-up, pop-under, or it can be stationary on your own website---that lists your offer along with several others. Some co-registration forms have only a few sites listed together, while others have more than 10, but what they all have in common is that you get to describe what the people are signing up for.

List building the right way allows for personal choice. Why does someone subscribe to your list? Because they like you or they like your message. They want to learn from you because they trust you to lead them in the right direction.

That's the difference between a lead and a subscriber. A subscriber has seen a description for your offer, whatever it is, and have signed up because of you. A lead has no connection to you other than you'll start to send them mail and guess what? You may be breaking the law. What you're sending is spam. Don't buy leads, they're a waste of money.

Remember, list building isn't something you can do blind. You want people to sign up because they know who you are and want to learn from you or do business with you. A bunch of strangers that someone else collected won't get you where you want to go.

If you've bought a bunch of leads, I'm sorry. Forget them, move on and start list building the right way. It's just ethical that people who sign up know what you're all about, too. If you're new to Internet Marketing, you may not even realize that it's not completely ethical to use leads, FFA leads (free for all) that you buy from someone else. Or, you may have been doing business a while and just started thinking about list building, too. Buying a list of customers seems like an easy way to go, but it's not list building, as least not the right way to go about list building.

Don't base your business on sand. You need a solid foundation. Collect leads by putting up a squeeze page, by having opt-in boxes on your site, through joint ventures, etc. When you're giving people what they truly want, you'll achieve much greater success.

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. Learn how to build a powerful and responsive list quickly through his premiere list-building course, MyFirstList.com.