Introduction to Email List
Are you fed up with collecting contacts that do not open emails, do not respond, and certainly do not convert to sales? Every B2B marketer has faced this situation. The reason for this lackluster performance is not your product or email copy, but rather the quality of your email list. Most marketers or business owners focus on accumulating large quantities of leads, which often compromises the quality of leads. It is finally time to talk about it. Let us discuss in detail how you can build an engaging email list that gets you the results you envisioned.
Table Of Contents
TL;DR
- An email list is an important resource in B2B marketing that gives marketers direct access to their target audience.
- An email list helps marketers run targeted and personalized campaigns. It is an affordable marketing method that brings in high returns. It also allows you to control the reach instead of waiting for the unpredictable social media algorithm to favor you.
- Here are a few strategies that can help you create a premium email list:
- Interesting and informative lead magnets can bring in leads.
- Creating content for all stages in the buyers’ journey helps convert visitors.
- Segmenting your audience according to different parameters helps keep content relevant.
- Interactive emails generate audience engagement.
- Pop-ups can help increase conversion rates.
- Nurture your email lists through relevant content to keep your contacts invested.
- Address multiple touch points. Make sure that the website appears reliable and is easy to use.
- Ensure that your email list is clean by removing old or incorrect email addresses. You can get in touch with reputable data vendors offering email appending services.
- Utilize AI and email automation.
- Use offline marketing methods to build your reach and collect email addresses of interested buyers.
- Make your email marketing campaign accessible to mobile users.
- Reach out to a top data vendor for a verified email list.
What Is An Email List?
An email list is a comprehensive database comprising email addresses and other pertinent details that B2B businesses can use to reach out to their target audience. It usually looks like this –
| Professional’s Name | Designation | Email Address | Location | Company Name |
| Raymond Clarke | CEO | ray***@va***.com | New York | Vanta**** Gro** |
| William Cross | President | wil***@ecl***.com | California | Ecli*** Strat**** |
It is an incredible resource for B2B marketers and business owners looking to –
- Create brand awareness
- Promote a new product.
- Send targeted messages
- Build a strong professional network.
- Assess engagement
- Run A/B testing and more.
Email list makes marketing smoother and simpler for marketers by giving them direct access to the important decision-makers of their industry.
Why Is An Email List Important?
Are email lists redundant in the highly digitized era? Think again. According to a McKinsey & Company report, email is 40X more effective than social media for gaining new customers. The more you delay creating an active email list, the more customers you lose. Let us understand why it is so important to build an engaging email list.
1. You Have A Direct Channel Of Communication
An email list lets you contact your target audience directly. You do not have to negotiate with middlemen or hope the algorithm favors you to ensure your message reaches them.
2. You Have Control Over Your Marketing Campaign
Even the best social media campaigns fall short at times due to the ever-changing algorithm. That is not the case with email marketing. You can always get incredible results once you have crafted an email list comprising an audience actively wanting to hear from you.
3. It Does Not Burn A Hole In Your Wallet
Yet another advantage of email marketing is its incredible affordability. You can run your marketing campaign with just a captivating copy and a computer. This makes it a great outreach option.
4. It Has A Very High ROI
Email marketing has an incredibly high ROI of 42 dollars for every dollar spent. This means you get much higher returns on your marketing efforts for the same budget when compared to other methods.
5. You Can Personalize Your Messages
Email lists let you customize your emails to match what your audience needs and wants. You can implement methods such as email list segmentation to make every message highly relevant to them. With segmented and personalized emails generating 58% of revenue, this is an opportunity you need to utilize.
15 Proven Strategies To Build An Engaging Email List That Converts
We have covered what an email list is and its importance in B2B marketing. Let us now learn how to build an engaging email list in detail.
1. Craft Enticing And Informative Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is basically an incentive you offer to your target audience to join your email list. It is a mutually profitable barter where they gain a valuable piece of content for free in exchange for their email address and other contact information.
Here is how you can create a lead magnet that reels your target customers in –
- Understand your buyers’ pain points and offer unique solutions.
- Keep it simple and free of jargon.
- Focus on one issue at a time.
With 90% of online users ready to offer their email addresses for freebies, lead magnets can be a great way for you to collect the contact information of interested leads.
2. Create Content For All Buyer Stages
Content marketing remains one of the best methods of gathering email lists. You can attract not just visitors but subscribers by creating informative content that offers value to your target audience. Content marketing comes in forms such as –
- Blogs
- Guides
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Checklists and more.
You must also understand that different buyers are at different places in their journey. You can easily keep your leads engaged by identifying their position in the email marketing funnel and creating content relevant to them. Here are the different stages of a marketing funnel –
- Awareness: This is the stage where a lead has just learned of your brand’s existence and what it offers.
- Consideration: At this stage, your target audience is actively weighing their options and comparing your product to your competitors.
- Conversion: This is where your target audience has successfully converted into a customer.
- Retention: Brands focus on retaining converted customers and encouraging them to spend more at this stage.
- Loyalty: This stage involves turning customers into advocates for your brand and providing organic visibility through referrals and word of mouth.
3. Segment Your Audience
Continuously sending irrelevant emails to your customers is a sure shot way to lose their engagement. This might cause them to unsubscribe from your email list or mark your sender ID as spam.
You can easily avoid this debacle by applying a neat trick called Email list segmentation. Divide your email lists into various groups based on metrics such as –
- Demography
- Buyer Journey
- Customer Behavior
- Interest.
It allows you to personalize your messaging and ensure it reaches only the relevant audience.
4. Make Your Copy Interactive
It is basically an email with embedded interactive elements. It allows users to engage and interact without leaving the email. It comes in forms such as –
- Polls
- Surveys
- Quizzes
- Offers and more.
A Litmus report finds that adding an interactive element to your email can bolster the click-to-open rates by as much as 73%. It engages the user by allowing them to participate actively instead of just being passive recipients. They also allow you to collect more data and adjust your messaging to keep them hooked.
5. Add Compelling CTAs To Every Email
Writing riveting email copies keeps your audience engaged, but it is of little use if you leave your reader hanging with no clear directions on what to do next. Research shows that a well-written and relevant CTA can bolster conversions by a staggering 202%. You can use CTAs or call to actions for the following purposes –
- Guiding your readers to relevant content.
- Encourage them to join your email list.
- Coax them into making a purchase.
Find out what you want the recipient to do after they have read your copy and create a CTA that coaxes them to do just that. This will keep them active and bring in the results you want from your campaign.
6. Ensure 100% Compliance With Data Privacy Laws
The increasing digitization of our world has led people to take data privacy quite seriously. Ignoring them not only damages your reputation as a marketer but also might land you in court.
Make sure that the email addresses you use are all opt-ins to avoid the hassle altogether. You must also make the process of unsubscribing simple to stay in line with data protection laws like GDPR.
7. Sprinkle Pop-Ups Throughout Your Website
Did you know that the highest performing website pop-ups have a conversion rate as high as 42%? Website pop-ups are an effective way to attract visitors and get them to share their email addresses.
Here are a few options you could consider –
- Countdown timers in your popups to create a sense of urgency or FOMO.
- Gamified popups to keep your users attentive.
- Exit intent pop-up to reel back the visitors that were leaving.
Placing them strategically throughout your website can yield great marketing results.
8. Nurture Your Email List
Creating an email list is just the first step; you need to nurture your subscribers to see results. Here are a few methods of nurturing your email lists –
- Send a welcome email right after someone subscribes and tell them how often they’ll get your emails.
- Keep sending them valuable content at regular intervals.
- Personalize your messages.
- Make every copy crisp and riveting. Incorporate catchy subject lines and relevant preview text. Do not forget to add at least one CTA to every copy.
- Re-engage cold leads or remove them from your email list.
9. Offer Multiple Touch Points
The secret to creating an engaging email list is giving your campaign multiple touch points. This gives your message greater visibility and allows more potential buyers to join in. Let us walk you through a few proven tactics to go about it –
- Partner up with related businesses and write guest posts for other blogs.
- Promote your content on social media.
- Add signup forms to your content.
- Host webinars and live streams talking about the common issues your target buyer group faces. You can utilize the registration process to collect their contact details.
10. Create A Simple And Trustworthy Landing Page
Your landing page is your brand’s very first impression on your visitor. It is therefore crucial to come across as reliable. Make sure that the user interface is simple and your website is easy to surf. You can consider including –
- Bot protection measures such as CAPTCHA or Cloudflare.
- Adding social proof of testimonials and reviews.
- Your contact details.
- Verification badges from various recognized organizations.
11. Maintain Email List Hygiene
A lot of B2B marketers and business owners pay more attention to growing their email lists, often forgetting the importance of keeping them hygienic. A subpar email list can cause more harm to your marketing campaigns than you realize. It can lower your KPIs and make recipients more likely to mark your sender address as spam. Try these tips to ensure email list hygiene –
- Keep only responsive customers in your email list.
- Run a reengagement campaign for your cold leads. Lose their contact details if you do not get any response.
- Update your database regularly. This helps you correct erroneous data and remove outdated information.
- Track the bounce and unsubscribe rates. They highlight that there is something wrong with your email list – be it old contacts or irrelevant content.
12. Leverage Email Automation
Did you know that 98% of B2B marketers cite automation as a crucial tool for success? Utilize email automation to send out –
- Welcome sequences
- Follow-up reminders
- Trigger-based emails
- Relevant content
- Nurturing emails and more!
This saves your time and resources while also setting your marketing campaign up for the best results. You can also bring AI into the fold to boost the output even more.
13. Utilize Offline List Building Methods
Do not limit your efforts to build an engaging email list to the digital world.
Take part in industry events to expand your reach and collect the email addresses of the top leaders of your industry. Also, consider handing out printed advertising materials like business cards and brochures to allow interested buyers to join your email list.
14. Incorporate Responsive Design For Mobile Users
A recent report reveals that people open 55% of all emails on smartphones. This clearly shows that if you do not design your email campaigns for mobile users, you miss a large part of your audience.
Ensure all your emails are designed with mobile users in mind to ensure your message reaches the desired audience, regardless of the device the viewer is using.
15. Reach Out To A Top Email List Vendor
Creating an engaged email list from the ground up requires a lot of time and resources. If you are strapped for time or money, buying an email list from a reputable vendor can be a good option. Check if the email lists have the following attributes before you make a choice –
- It has a high accuracy rate.
- It has been thoroughly verified.
- It has a high deliverability rate.
- It is the latest.
- It is fully compliant with data privacy laws.
Final Thoughts
Creating an engaging email list may seem hard at first glance, but it is super simple once you get the basics right. Follow our tips and you will have one at your disposal before you even know it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. What mistakes should I avoid while creating an email list?
Answer: These are a few mistakes you should look out for while you are building your email list –
- Not abiding by the data privacy laws.
- Not cleansing your database regularly.
- Not segmenting your email lists.
- Do not A/B test your emails before running your email marketing campaign.
Q2. How can I use AI in creating an engaged email list?
Answer: You can use AI to –
- Create catchy copies.
- Send relevant messages to the right audience.
- Track performance
- Personalize emails and more!
Author Bio
Name: Krista Grace
Krista Grace is a Content Manager whose expertise lies in SEO marketing, content writing, and data-based management.
Working as a Content Manager at TargetNXT for more than 6 years, Krista has incorporated her deep insight into search engine optimization and B2B marketing to produce content that ranks high on SERP. She has a keen eye for database management, which allows her to continue helping businesses with her content.
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