No matter your business type, knowing how to build a targeted email list is essential if you want to grow your business. Unfortunately, most people need to learn how to build a quality list of leads. They either spend hours trying to find a few leads or blanket contact anyone at a company in hopes that that person will point them in the right direction. Don’t fear; in this article, I will give you tips on how to build a targeted email list that you can start using right now.
Big Question
The big question is, how do you build a list of targeted leads from scratch? This article will focus on building a quick list of targeted contacts for cold email outreach. We will not discuss organic growth or using ads, opt-in forms, social media, blogs, or other subscription opportunities to gather leads.
We are getting down and dirty with a simple two-step process to gather a list of leads and verify emails you can immediately use to engage in cold email marketing outreach.
Everybody Sends Cold Emails
I am sure a few of you think, “sending cold emails is bad.” Please, give it a rest. Everybody does cold emailing, so don’t act like you are above it. The average person gets over 100 emails daily, and I’m sure you didn’t opt-in to receive emails from all those people. When done right, cold email outreach is one of the best ways to promote and grow your business. When done wrong, it can harm your business and reputation.
Don’t Buy An Email List
Before we jump into this, there is something I have to say, and most email marketers will agree, don’t buy an email list. With it, you usually get the following:
- Outdated Contacts
- Bad Emails
- Higher Bounce Rates
- Higher Unsubscribe Rates
- A Decrease in Engagement Rates
Building an Email List
To start with, you’ve got a choice. You can scrape and comb the internet for leads. You can grow your list organically and take months to build it, or we can keep this simple and make your life a lot easier with an easy two-step process.
Step 1: Use Lead Generation Software
Using lead generation software might cost you a few bucks monthly, but it will save you time, money, and effort. After all, time is money, and you want to avoid going from website to website to find your leads.
There is tons of software out there that you can use to find targeted leads. With software like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Seamless.ai, you can drill down and build lists of targeted, segmented leads based on the following:
- Company Name
- Job Titles
- Location
- Departments
- Seniority
- Industries
- Technologies
- Websites
- Revenue
- Employee Size
- Names
- Keywords
- and more
Once you hone in on your ideal clients and hit the search button, you will get all the necessary information to build your list. I’m talking about:
- First & Last Name
- Job Tile
- Company name
- Website URL
- Email Address
- Contact & Company Address
- Contact & Company Phone Numbers
- Contact & Company LinkedIn Profiles
- and so much more
Step 2: Clean & Verify Your Emails
Before entering these new contacts into a CRM or starting your outreach, you must verify the emails on your list. You can easily do this with email verification software like Debounce, Hunter, or Zero Bounce. You can choose from many forms of email verification software, so find one that fits your budget.
When you run your emails through whatever email verification software you use, emails come back as Safe to Send, Risky, Invalid, or unknown. All these services will have a certain percentage of emails they mark as safe or risky that will still bounce when you send them (nobody’s perfect). If you want to keep your bounce rates low, send emails only to contacts marked as valid or safe to send.
Well, that’s about it. You now have a list of targeted leads with verified emails—your next steps involve messaging and building an outreach strategy that delivers results. There are articles and videos all over this site on how to do both.
Good Luck.
by Lonnie Horsey