“It’s September, and we don’t have a style guide for Holiday. We’re making it up as we go.”

“We’re having challenges getting our brand campaign faithfully executed by our internal creative team and agency partners.”

“We need more events, beyond the retail holidays, to get customers excited about coming into our stores.”

“We need more assets so we can allocate more of our print budget to the digital space.”

“We want our marketing team to work further ahead so we can guarantee a 360-degree experience.”

Whoa. That’s a lot of really big challenges. Any of them sound familiar? Most retailers—indeed most marketers—have experienced these issues. And they all share one thing in common: an urgent need to plan ahead.

Does this conversation sound familiar?

“Hey Bob, have we implemented marketing automation yet?”

“Do you mean Salesforce?”

“Well, Salesforce can be part of it, but I mean the software that automatically sends out our content?”

“What content?”

It’s perhaps the most common conversation I have with prospective clients, and it goes something like this: Tim, I really need to communicate with potential new customers, but I don’t have a database list to send to. Where’s the best place to buy a list? Oh, and by the way, I need it fast and I don’t have much budget to work with.

As I interrupt the question, I respond that there is no place to safely buy/rent/gather/assemble a safe email list at any price. A look of despair ensues. 

Huh?

I repeat: There is no place to safely buy/rent/gather/assemble an email list at any price.