What to do with my leads???

[SyncMaster294B]

Hey guys,

I'm in an interesting situation today...

One of my colleagues is a leads broker for mortgage leads, merchant account leads, credit repair, etc. It's a legit business that he runs (selling leads), and it's legal because these leads have been collected legitimately and most of them are contacted offline.

He recently sent over a 142 MB zip file with a leads database of 224,000+ attorneys, including their email, full name, address, firm address, work/mobile phone numbers and their law practice area.

I'm calling him momentarily to find out how the leads/data was obtained so that I can make a legal/ethical decision in regards to leveraging this data somehow.

My question is this...

If these leads are legitimate "opt-in" leads that have surrendered their information in some way to a lead aggregator of some kind (someone was selling their information with full disclosure and visible disclaimers), since I'm acting as a "purchasing advertiser" of sorts - what exactly can I do with this list?

Is it legal/ethical to load their info into a mailer and send them an offer of some kind?

Is this considered "solicited" if they've (the leads) willfully given their information to someone who made it clear that their contact info would be sold?

I know that sounds like a loaded question...

You see, I've always been the guy practicing and preaching optin/verified optin list building from the ground up. And I'm the biggest advocator of using Aweber.com and similar services to build up a client base of people that have requested specific info, and then building a relationship, etc.

I've never dealt with purchased leads previously - this is new territory for me (and no, I didn't purchase these leads. This is a JV).

I guess more than anything, I just want to do the right thing.

If anyone has experience in mailing to purchased opt-in leads, etc., I'd love to hear your input on this...

Thanks guys,

-Chris

 

[dsuen78]

If you plan on mailing then you have no problems. But if you intend to sell the list with phone #'s for calling, then the list has to be scrub against the national Do Not Call (DNC) list. It will also help if you have a SAN. Good luck.

 

[chasedyson]

I once worked for a Internet Marketing Coaching sales company and we were paying $50 per lead. If I had a stack of leads like you do I would definitely just check them against the DNC list and sell them...

 

[Toolboy]

Depends how big a business you run and how big a campaign you plan on starting, and maybe where you are based. -Maybe I will get in trouble for the attitudes I have developed but I wouldn't hesitate to use the leads (more like prospects to me since they are really just a bunch of companies and not interested in your service yet)

I'm in the UK and previously worked at a Telesales call centre selling leads (just company lists not really leads at all) to businesses and we would have a column on the database which told the buyer which where on the TPS (UK do not call list.)
- Even though we were in that business we still called anyone and everyone and if someone complained then we would apologise and make a note of it. Yes you can get fined here for doing that but realistically if you apologise and say you will take them off the list what will happen?

You would probably not like the idea of emailing all these either. I just sent 300 emails to legal firms, 2 unsubscribed, 1 complained and asked me to remove his name which I have and 2 came back to me wanting to know more about what I have to offer them. I don't think ROKSO really give two shits about me just yet so I am sleeping soundly tonight.

 

[teeniegenie]

If you plan on mailing then you have no problems. But if you intend to sell the list with phone #'s for calling, then the list has to be scrub against the national Do Not Call (DNC) list. It will also help if you have a SAN. Good luck.

I once worked for a Internet Marketing Coaching sales company and we were paying $50 per lead. If I had a stack of leads like you do I would definitely just check them against the DNC list and sell them...

Depends how big a business you run and how big a campaign you plan on starting, and maybe where you are based. -Maybe I will get in trouble for the attitudes I have developed but I wouldn't hesitate to use the leads (more like prospects to me since they are really just a bunch of companies and not interested in your service yet)

I'm in the UK and previously worked at a Telesales call centre selling leads (just company lists not really leads at all) to businesses and we would have a column on the database which told the buyer which where on the TPS (UK do not call list.)
- Even though we were in that business we still called anyone and everyone and if someone complained then we would apologise and make a note of it. Yes you can get fined here for doing that but realistically if you apologise and say you will take them off the list what will happen?

You would probably not like the idea of emailing all these either. I just sent 300 emails to legal firms, 2 unsubscribed, 1 complained and asked me to remove his name which I have and 2 came back to me wanting to know more about what I have to offer them. I don't think ROKSO really give two shits about me just yet so I am sleeping soundly tonight.

LOL - you 3 saw that this thread is from 2008, right?

 

[Toolboy]

LMAO Maybe theres a chance the op kept returning to this thread waiting for a response and now at last he is getting the feedback he has been waiting for

 

[Rainmaker1]

Hi All,

sorry to add my comment in this thread

we are looking for diabetic short form buyers urgently..any assistance will be highly appreciated