So you bought an email list. Now what?

Posted by LinkedSelling in Uncategorized

You just bought an email list, or maybe you’re about to.

Naturally, you’re thinking about what to do with it.  Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do with it.

Yet, what you should NOT do is equally important.

Buying a list should not be about just blasting out an email and calling it a day. 

But unfortunately, that’s how many business owners, marketers, and sales leaders approach it.

Instead, you should look at things with a campaign mindset.

Before we get into exactly what that means, let’s just talk about some of the tactics you can employ utilizing an email list.

(The following assumes that your list comes loaded with email, name, company, title, phone, and mailing address.)

1. Send an email blast. (not recommended)
2. Email the list in batches with semi-personalized messages.  (Hint: people respond at a much higher rate when they know you’re not using email marketing software)
3. Send a follow up email.  (You’ll see half of your responses come off the second email, but most people aren’t diligent enough to do it!)
   • IMPORTANT: With all of these email tactics, be sure to remain spam compliant. If you’re in the US, here are some guidelines.
4. Keep sending follow ups!  Studies have shown that it takes an average of 8 attempts to reach a prospect.  Most salespeople give up after 1 or 2.
5. Pick up the phone.  If you don’t get a response after a couple emails, move them into the telemarketing component of the campaign.
6. Consider a direct mail piece somewhere in the process.
   • Really?  Direct mail?  Yes.  It’s been proven that you can dramatically increase your ability to reach prospects when you utilize a number of different approaches.
7. Use the email addresses to facilitate LinkedIn connection requests or group invitations.
8. Set up a custom audience in Facebook to retarget these prospects via ads.

These approaches are a fit for almost any business.  Of course, your business is unique so there are likely others that you should be considering.

So now what?

Put together a handful of tactics that you’re committed, and design a campaign.

Building Your Campaign

Here’s the thing.  Studies have shown that it takes at least 8 touch points to get a prospect to respond to you.

So if your campaign includes only a couple touches or activities, you’re going to miss out on a lot of business opportunities.

(For more on this, I highly recommend Chet Holmes’ Ultimate Sales Machine.)

How should you structure your campaign, you ask?

Here’s one way to do it.

• TOUCH 1 – Initial Email
• TOUCH 2 – Follow Up Email (only send to those who didn’t respond to email 1)
• TOUCH/PHASE 3 – Nurture Campaign (move everybody into an ongoing email nurture campaign; this isn’t a one-touch activity, it’s an ongoing process and really provides many touches)
• TOUCH/PHASE 4 – Ongoing Lead Scoring from Nurture Campaign to queue up phone calls for prospects that demonstrate an interest.  Yes, pick up the phone and give ’em a call!
• TOUCH/PHASE 5 – Selectively reach out to prospects through LinkedIn.  This can be done via connection requests, InMails, group invitations, etc.
• TOUCH/PHASE 6 – Retarget the list through Facebook and Twitter advertising.
• TOUCH/PHASE 7 – Direct mail piece to the most “high value” prospects.
• PHASE 8 – Rinse and repeat, buy/develop a new list, etc.

For B2B companies looking for a consistent flow of leads and sales activity, you won’t find a much better mix of outbound activities.  And as you can see, these activities integrate really well with your inbound efforts also.

Keep in mind though, this is just one example. The playbook for your company should be unique to your situation, and the ways that your prospects can be reached.

What else would you add? How has your business effectively utilized lists?