This post was originally published in 2018. Because purchasing B2B email lists is still an extremely effective way to generate leads, it has been updated and reworked for 2021.
We have discussed the idea of buying email lists and how you can use this strategy generate warm B2B leads for your business many times on this blog . However, the general consensus online is that buying email lists is a bad idea. And we think we know why…
Many marketers try to use the same tactics (and software) they would for an opt-in (permission based) list. Not only is this not effective, it’s against the rules of most marketing automation software and email service providers. This can completely destroy the ROI of your purchased email list, and even get your IP address blacklisted.
The trick is, you need to use an Email Lead Generation (ELG) platform that was designed for sending outbound email campaigns to a purchased list of contacts. When you approach Email Lead Generation the right way, you generate new, opted-in leads for your business, not spam complaints.
In this post, we’ll explain the right way to go about buying a targeted email list, and how to effectively extend your reach to an unlimited amount of potential leads.
Buying Email Lists for B2B Lead Generation
Email marketing has proven to be one of the most effective ways to generate more B2B leads for your business. I think we can all agree that building a list of contacts has a huge potential for future value, but the best way to get those contacts to begin with is open to debate.
A quick Google search will show broad statements like “buying email lists is a bad idea“, because shady marketers have ruined the reputation of this practice by sending out massive e-blasts with irrelevant content to a cold audience as if anyone would actually respond to them.
You know the emails we’re talking about. They offer you no value, have no idea who you are, and how they even made it through your spam filter is a mystery.
But what about an email from a business professional that respects your time and offers you an honest solution to a problem? These are the types of emails that actually get responses from targeted prospects, and they are nothing like the spam e-blasts we just mentioned.
Emails that deliver immediate value to the reader in the form of useful information or an actionable solution get clicks. They get high-value prospects to take action and reach out to your sales team, and they really work.
How CDI generated over $30K in annual revenue from a single cold email campaign (Case Study)
The Benefits of Buying an Email List
The obvious benefit to buying an email list vs. collecting permission based contacts is the amount of time you save. Waiting for inbound permission-based leads to trickle in slowly can be painful, especially when your pipeline has run dry.
Buying a targeted email list can expand your marketing reach overnight. A reputable data provider will let you select the type of business, size, location and more to create a highly targeted list of prospects for you to market to.
It’s a good idea to create a concrete buyer persona that you can bring to your data provider, so they can supply you with something that closely aligns with it. This increases the chances that your contacts will engage with the content you’re creating, so you can reach your campaign goals.
A purchased list can be a great asset to your business, but only if you handle it in the right way. A targeted list of email contacts in your industry can contain countless warm leads that are ready to learn more about your services and unique solutions.
How to Convert Cold Contacts into Leads
Even though your outbound email campaigns are well-planned, highly targeted, and offer immediate value to the reader, converting a cold audience into leads takes time. Start by focusing on collecting opt-ins to your permission-based list through engaging content.
The B2B sales cycle is long, so it may take a number of campaigns to sway a cold prospect towards your brand. They need to see that you are a real business offering a valuable service, so don’t be afraid to build your campaigns with the idea of warming your audience up in mind.
This practice is called lead nurturing, and it’s an effective way to extract value from a cold email list. Some cold contacts will be ready to fill out a form and talk to you, so make sure to provide a clear option to convert your audience into sales-ready leads as well.
Email Software For Cold Email Lead Generation
The Clickback Email Lead Generation platform was specifically designed to turn cold contacts into B2B leads. This means that it includes all of the tools needed to prepare your list for delivery including an advanced list cleaning function.
The list cleaning removes bad emails addresses and spam traps that a traditional email service provider or automation tool would ignore. The bad data from a purchased list will be filtered out, so you can be confident that you’re only delivering your message to real industry-related contacts.
Once you have imported your cold list into the software and it has been cleaned, you’ll benefit from a higher deliverability rate and an improved sender score. These result in more cold contacts receiving your email message and engaging with your content.
Clickback includes an easy, drag-and-drop message creator to build new campaigns, or you can select from a variety of professionally designed, mobile-friendly templates.
Once you are happy with the look and feel of your email content, you can run it through Clickback’s advanced spam-checker tool that uses the latest data to flag potential issues with your body content. Then, it’s just a matter of cleaning up the content so your campaign stands the best chance of reaching your cold list.
Use Clickback with your Purchased List
Once you have purchased a professionally vetted email list of industry related B2B contacts from a reputable provider, you can run the contacts through Clickback’s built-in email verifier to clean the list.
Our advanced hygiene checks filter out duplicate records, spam traps, honeypots and much more. The software will also ensure that your campaigns are 100% CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL compliant before being delivered.
You’ll easily be able to direct the responses from your email campaigns to the appropriate funnels. Hot leads will go to your sales team to follow up, while warm leads head over to marketing for more nurturing.
Additionally, with Clickback’s revolutionary Website Visitor Intelligence (WVI) functionality, unconverted contacts from your purchased list that visit your website are tracked and nurtured. This allows you to see not only who is visiting your website, but how they’re interacting with it once they land there, giving you real, actionable data that you can use to make informed changes to your campaigns and landing pages in the future, resulting in more conversions.
It all starts with your email list. Luckily, Clickback partners with several reputable providers who would be happy to supply you with a list that closely aligns with your buyer persona. For more information, feel free to sign up for a free 1-on-1 demo with one of our Email Lead Generation Experts.
