Closing a deal with a B2B customer tends to take a lot longer than getting a consumer to purchase a product. There’s a team involved in the decision-making process, and everyone must sign off for the deal to go through.
But before you ever get to the point of closing a deal, you need time to nurture relationships with each decision-maker, and you need a channel that will help you do it efficiently. An email newsletter is the perfect vehicle for building relationships with your B2B customer base.
The first step is growing an organic list of email subscribers who are genuinely interested in what you offer and learning how to maintain that list long-term. Here are the top five strategies to help you do exactly that.
1. Optimize Your Signup Form By Making It Easy
When someone gets ready to subscribe to your email newsletter, they want it to be quick and easy. They don’t want anything standing in between them from getting the content they want. So, a signup form with too many fields to fill out isn’t a wise approach.
You may want to collect as much information about subscribers as possible, right off the bat. However, it’s more important to get them subscribed. You can always collect information about them over time once they are a part of your email list.
Optimize the signup form you have on your website so that it’s simple and easy to complete. It should give just enough information about what they can expect in your email newsletter. Then, only ask for the information you absolutely need right now, like their name, email address, and maybe company information.
You also want to be particular about where you place your signup form on your website. For example, a popup could appear on your home page right before a person tries to exit. Or, put your signup form on your product page to incite signups from those who want product updates.
Ensure your sign-up form is optimized for simplicity and placed strategically on your website.
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2. Draw Subscribers in With Valuable Lead Magnets
Describing all the wonderful things about your newsletter may not be enough to convince someone to subscribe to it. They may need a little extra push to input their information and hit subscribe. Valuable lead magnets give that push.
You’re giving them a resource or tool they can use to better their business. You’re also giving them a glimpse into the kind of content they’ll receive in the newsletter.
Creating a useful lead magnet starts with brainstorming offers that aren’t incredibly time-consuming to make but offer immense value. For example, an industry report from your company provides insight into a new development. Or, a tool that can help them measure the success of an element in their business.
Automatically send new subscribers the lead magnet, and consider adding another valuable resource in the welcome email to exceed their expectations.
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4. Promote Your Email List Offline
Some of the best advice is the tried-and-true, traditional business techniques companies use offline to create personal connections with customers. Offline connections can translate into an online contact list of B2B subscribers who are more likely to be engaged with your content. You need solid industry and customer relationships to help your email newsletter grow.
Having a presence on social media is only part of how you build such relationships. The other part is an offline effort that entails in-person networking and marketing. For example, you could attend industry events, meet potential clients, and end your conversations with how they can contact you and stay updated via your email newsletter.
You could also host a business event of your own and collect valuable data there. For instance, you could capture email addresses in RSVPs and give them the option to opt into your email newsletter to stay updated on the event.
Promoting your email newsletter online is a must. But don’t be afraid to go offline too.
5. Create Targeted Email Campaigns
Once you get subscribers, you must nurture your relationships consistently. The goal is to feed your subscribers valuable content in an email newsletter experience they can’t get anywhere else. You want them to feel like the newsletter was made for them, and that requires targeted email campaigns.
Segment your email subscribers into smaller groups based on similar demographics, behaviors, or interests. From there, you want to create email content and campaigns for each specific segment.
Think about what each subscriber segment would want and need to know about your business and what kind of content would interest them. Then, get to work on creating and sending it to your email subscribers. This way, you’ll retain the growth you work so hard to build.
You can inspire a whole lot of engagement and conversions with a great email newsletter. But the first step is using these strategies to build a solid list of subscribers.
Conclusion
Building your base of subscribers won’t happen overnight. However, it will happen eventually. Follow the tips mentioned above and have patience. Soon enough, you’ll have an audience that is not only interested in what you have to say but your business as well.
3. Use Social Media to Build Your Email List
If you think your B2B customers aren’t on social media much, you’re wrong. They’re engaging on these platforms via their personal and professional profiles, just like anyone else. So, why not leverage social media to promote your email newsletter?
It’s one of the best channels to broadcast your sign-up form and information about your email newsletter, considering the potentially huge reach you have.
The key is to not annoy your followers with post after post about your email newsletter. You should be more focused on building your brand on your respective platforms and genuinely engaging with your followers. That way, when you do post about your email newsletter, you’ll get actual engagement and conversions.
Mix posts about your email newsletter into your overarching social media content strategy. You can also launch a targeted campaign that lasts over a few months or so to drive traffic to your email signup form.
It might also be a good idea to invest in ad space. You can define the B2B audience you’re after to give yourself a better chance at driving quality leads to your newsletter.
However, if you decide to use social media to promote your email newsletter, ensure you’re consistent.