By creating your own contact list and keeping in touch with your customers and prospects, you will help your audience be ready to buy the next time you have a commercial message to deliver
Have you just created a global service that is about to change everyone’s life in the next few years? You have invested so much time in its marketing, created many social media accounts and even launched a few ads but at the end of the month… nobody buys?
You are not alone, many people have dedicated a lot of energy to create appealing social media profiles with interesting content but results are not worth the effort.
This is happening to too many of our clients. What is the mistake being made? They decided to rely solely on social media.
Don’t get me wrong, social media is extremely important. It is a great place to find clients! Nowadays LinkedIn is a great tool to find potential B2B customers. This is a great time to use it. Its maturity makes it a powerful yet accessible tool.
The significant disadvantage of social networks is that you don’t own them.
You depend on an algorithm that can easily make you invisible for your audience at the least convenient time for you.
This is why you should start building your own contact list on the spot!
Therefore, by creating your list and keeping in contact with your customers or prospects on a regular basis, you will help your audience be ready to buy (or at least listen carefully) the next time you have a commercial message to deliver.
The sooner you will set this in motion, the sooner you will sell online!
You may be wondering now:
What is exactly a contact list? 
Your contact list is a simple record of names, emails and eventually phone numbers. People that have intentionally given their data in order to receive:
- – your newsletters packed with valuable content
- – commercial information
- – new service or product launch announcements
- – updates on exclusive offers, etc.
Although we mentioned mostly commercial information you can share, your best content mix should follow the 80/20 rule that is: 80% free, spontaneous and valuable content and only 20% of promotional content.
LinkedIn is currently the best social network for B2B. Now is a great time to use it, its maturity makes it a powerful yet accessible tool.
Why should you always gather emails while building your list?
Have you heard anyone say that email marketing is dead? I hope not, otherwise, don’t listen to them! I am not talking about spam here, email marketing is not about finding the largest database for sale and blasting out thousands of unsolicited emails.
Email marketing or e-marketing is a form of mutual consent for an online correspondence. In other words,the person to whom you are writing has knowingly decided to share his or her contact information with you their contact information through your website or social media in exchange for valuable content such as checklists, e-books or masterclasses. This simple understanding opens a door for casual promotional content.
People are more receptive to prospecting when they are interested in the product or service you are promoting.
Wouldn’t you love to get a discount on a product you were already expecting to buy?
This is where marketing is hopefully headed and I believe this is a win-win scenario. You gain a new customer and he or she receives value in the form of content and/or discounts.
In order for this to happen, we need to properly handle data and therefore, rigorously manage our CRM.
People are more receptive to prospecting when they are interested in the product or service you are promoting.
Email marketing is alive and well 📧
People do read their emails. We even have numbers to prove it! A study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) says that every dollar spent returns 42$. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
Emails enable more personalized interactions. Unlike social networks that give access to wide or narrow audiences, email allows for individual conversations, with the ability to customize topics based on your recipient’s history with you or your brand.
For instance, you can track a specific action performed by your contact on your website such as downloading a free resource.
Thanks to the latest emailing platforms you can automate some customization elements such as names, language preferences or any bit of relevant information you have recorded on your CRM. If you are not automating your email delivery, you can go even further with the information at hand on your CRM so why not ask for your customers’ family, hometown, etc.
Now don’t forget that the most important thing is to come up with solutions to your contact’s specific problems.
You own the information you gather
Isn’t this better? If you only use social media you’ll be dependent on the audiences to which the network will display your content. Furthermore, some people within these audiences may not match your ideal client profile.
By building your own database, you can make sure you will:
- – reach people interested in your product/service
- – have a regular presence at the top of their inbox and therefore in their minds
- – maintain a connection with your contacts even if your favorite social network fades in popularity or disappears
Consistency is key for all this to work
You know the theory, you know why you should build your contact base and how to use it, now you need consistency to make your email marketing strategy work.
To be able to regularly send emails, be it once a month or once a week, you need to work on a content plan.
Study your ideal client profile needs and identify the topics you need to work on to provide solutions to the problems he or she may encounter.
Batch processing can also be very helpful in relieving some of the pressure to maintain the necessary pace.
Being consistent is hard but it pays off. Every time you check the progression of your analytical tools, you will gain energy to continue giving value to your contacts.
Once again, we urge you to diversify your efforts and direct most of your energy to email marketing and stop relying on social media!
María del Carmen M.
Digital Marketing Director