Mailing Lists: Keep Calm and Carry On

It is undoubtedly troubling and worrying times for business at the moment and for many business owners and marketeers this could mean tightening of budgets. Does this mean that marketing should stop completely until this passes? No!

Effective sales and marketing, whether that be email, social media and digital, postal or press and display advertising drives leads. This is as true now as it was 6 months ago or 2 years ago.

Obviously, there has been a slow-down, but the best thing businesses can do is drive as many leads as possible, even if that is less than normal. One thing is for certain, fewer leads is better than no leads!

Mailing lists, particularly when used for email marketing, offer a great way to get your message out at scale without huge cost. If you’re still looking to drive leads into your business then here are some key tips on how to get the most from your B2B mailing lists.

Use email (but don’t rely on it)

Too many business think that by simply sending out a well-constructed email to their target audience will provide instant returns. It is true, that email marketing can drive instant leads, and can reach large volume quickly, but the most effective campaigns are multi-channel.

Ensure that the message you are promoting is also supported on social media. In the B2B space, this is usually Twitter and LinkedIn but depending on your product other channels may be relevant to.

When buying data lists for marketing to new prospects don’t just buy the email addresses. Most providers will hold telephone data and use this to follow up the recipients that have opened and/or clicked on your email marketing.

Multi-stage campaigns for engagement

Most people don’t like to be sold to. Fire and forget email campaigns that have the sole aim of driving a lead or sale right now have the highest unsubscribe rates. If you are using email marketing send campaigns you would like to receive. Be interesting, relevant and share your knowledge with your prospects.

When purchasing business mailing lists make sure that you get a license that allows you to send a series of emails. This will allow you to send multiple campaigns that establish your business as a trusted voice – leads will come as a by-product.

Be Targeted

The key to any marketing is to ensure that you are talking to the right audience. Whilst the temptation with email marketing is to go for the largest possible volume you should be careful. High volume is great, provided the prospects you are targeting are relevant to your product.

If you put volume at the heart of your campaign strategy then you run the risk of ineffective campaigns that the recipients do not engage with. This can be demoralising for your sales team that are following up the leads. Worse still is that ISPs can see the lack of engagement and it might damage the effectiveness of future campaigns.

In the B2B mailing list industry your provider will be able to let you target prospects by industry or job title as well as many other factors like company size, location, creditworthiness and many more.

Test and Learn

Try different messages, different times of day and with email marketing different subject lines. Carry out split tests and analyse the results to make sure you go-to-market with your best foot forward. The performance of your campaigns will change due to all manner of reasons, so keep testing and keep learning.

Reporting on the success of your campaign is crucial to getting buy-in from your team, or if your budget is under pressure the person who holds the purse strings. Make sure you have set the right expectations for your campaign, whether you are answerable to a manager or just to yourself.

The key is to try new things and be patient!

If you are looking to carry out prospect email marketing for the first time and are looking for advice, read our Buyers Guide for email marketing.

Speak to one of our experts about your acquisition campaign today