You’ve grown your contact list by 300%! Now what?

20141007433_6cef5546c6_b

So you’ve developed the industry’s best white paper, ran an impressive social advertising campaign and received thousands of new email contacts. Now what? An expansive contact list is great, but only if you know how to use it.

Break it down.

Segmenting your email list allows you to focus on certain groups based on specific traits or characteristics. Let’s say your target audience is IT managers. The IT manager at a small local company is going to have different challenges and priorities than an IT manager for a Fortune 500 company. Segmenting these individuals into different groups according to company size not only allows you to better communicate to each by focusing directly on their unique pain points, but also lets you prioritize those specific groups that better fit your business goals.

It’s important to understand your target audiences – their goals, challenges and how it relates to your product or services – before you start segmenting your contact list. Prioritize groups based on which ones are the best fit for your business.

Stay in touch – with the right message.

Just because they’ve come to your website to download a piece of content doesn’t mean they’ll keep checking back on their own to see what’s new. Whether it’s an e-newsletter, an email with another piece of content or simply a personalized email from a sales rep checking in, it’s important to regularly touch base – so long as you continue to provide content they find interesting and helpful. Which begs the question, what does your audience find interesting and helpful?

Develop better ads.

If you’re using – or plan to use – Facebook advertising to promote your business, another way to use a contact list is to develop a “lookalike audience.” Aptly named, Facebook allows you to upload your email list, which it then scans and cross-references with the emails you provided with those of active Facebook accounts. Through its Facebook magic, it finds all the common characteristics these accounts share and then creates a separate audience of individuals not on your list, but who share those same characteristics for you to target.

After spending time and resources building an email list of prospects and customers, you want to make the best use of the list to grow your business. Segmenting your email list is a powerful way to make sure your marketing efforts are focused on customers and leads who are most likely to respond to your message.

(Photo: Flickr/NicolaScott)

Laura Elizabeth Saunders

Laura Elizabeth is a strategic dynamo, especially when it comes to implementing inbound marketing strategies. She also enjoys doing research, writing and media relations works for a variety of B2B clients.

Read more by Laura Elizabeth

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up to receive our blog posts by email