Email List Growth Tactics

Become an Expert: How to Use Google Ads to Capture Seasonal Demand 1. Targeted Advertising: Google Ads allows businesses to target their ads to specific audiences based on a variety of factors, such as demographics, location, interests, and search queries. This means that businesses can tailor their ads to reach consumers who are most likely to be interested in their products or services during specific seasons. 2. Increased Visibility: By using Google Ads, businesses can increase their visibility on search engine results pages and reach potential customers who are actively searching for products or services related to seasonal events or holidays. This can help businesses stand out from the competition and attract more traffic to their website. 3. Flexible Budgeting: Google Ads offers businesses the flexibility to set their own budget and maximum bids for their ads, allowing them to control their advertising costs and optimize their return on investment. This is especially important during seasonal peaks, when demand and competition may be higher. 4. Real-time Insights: Google Ads provides businesses with real-time data and insights on the performance of their ads, allowing them to track key metrics such as click-through rates, conversions, and return on ad spend. This data can help businesses make informed decisions and adjust their advertising strategies to maximize results during peak seasons.  Follow these key steps: 1. Plan Ahead: Research and identify key seasonal trends and events that are relevant to your business, and create a seasonal advertising calendar to plan your campaigns in advance. 2. Create Seasonal Ad Campaigns: Develop targeted ad campaigns that align with seasonal themes, promotions, and messaging to attract and engage your target audience. 3. Use Seasonal Keywords: Incorporate seasonal keywords and phrases into your ad copy and landing pages to optimize your campaigns for search engine visibility and relevance. 4. Monitor and Optimize: Continuously monitor the performance of your seasonal ad campaigns, test different strategies, and make adjustments to optimize your ads for maximum impact. Summary:  Google Ads is a powerful tool for businesses looking to capture seasonal demand and drive targeted traffic to their websites. By leveraging the benefits of targeted advertising, increased visibility, flexible budgeting, and real-time insights, businesses can effectively reach and engage consumers during peak seasons. #GoogleAds, #SeasonalMarketing, #PPC, #MarketingStrategy, #OnlineAdvertising, #DigitalMarketing, #AdWords, #Advertising, #SEM, #MarketingTips, #SeasonalCampaigns, #DemandGeneration, #ConversionRateOptimization

We approach another Black Friday and Cyber Monday season, here is what to do now when you want to max WhatsApp revenue. BFCM is no longer just a day or two of sales - it's a strategic weeks-long campaign that can define a brand's entire year. Reflecting on last year’s results, we saw remarkable growth for brands through our platform: 🚀 233% increase in revenue generated compared to 2022 🚀 2.5x growth in organic opt-in collection during event weeks 🚀 35% higher revenue per conversation (RPC) during Black Week 🚀 around 5% of all Germans received WhatsApp messages through our platform The future of BFCM is about more than just discounts. It’s about creating meaningful, long-term connections that extend well beyond the holiday season. Over the years working with hundreds of brands, we’ve honed a 3-step framework for an effective WhatsApp BFCM strategy. Here’s a quick breakdown: 1️⃣ 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧 Set your BFCM goals: revenue / AOV -> conversions Break it down to channels, including WhatsApp goals Go backwards, how many subcribers do you need How many touchpoints do you need to convert (Warming up your subscriber base works great!) Iterate top-down, bottom-up Until you feel confident, yet be ambitious Plan you campaigns across channels. Ensure your tech stack is ready (and your WhatsApp platform well integrated with your shop /CRM) 2️⃣ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭 Segment your audience. Finalize your offers and content (fit to channel!) Ensure tracking is setup For those who are sophisticated: Retarget and optimize for conversion and cost: - those who have signed up but not clicked, - those who have clicked but not purchased (depends if your platform can do this) (leverage the 24h window within whatsapp to have multiple touchpoints for the same price) Personalized, timely and targeted communication is the key to driving sales. You should use the week or two before Black Friday with events such as Singles Day to test your campaigns and optimize performance before Nov 29th. 3️⃣ 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 Sent tracking order confirmations and tracking notifications. Set up post-purchase flows - immediate after purchase to understand satisfaction and collect reviews. - depending on your retention cycle for 2nd purchase (align with email flows in Klaviyo, Emarsys or whatever you use to save cost) Turning one-time buyers into loyal customers is the ultimate goal and that’s what ensures repeated value from a channel like WhatsApp. We’ve gathered all our resources in one place for you: https://hubs.la/Q02NjSPH0 From our revenue calculator showing you how much money you might leave on the table, to gaining early access to our detailed WhatsApp BFCM playbook and more insights into how we create value across the entire customer journey during Black Week and beyond. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐬 𝐁𝐅𝐂𝐌 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝? #BFCM #BlackFriday2024 #ecommerce #WhatsAppMarketing #CustomerEngagement

Segmentation beats personalization. Personalization is terribly inefficient... (and oftentimes unnecessary outside of highly strategic enterprise selling). Think about the ads that really grab your attention. None of them have your name in them. Or mention podcasts you were interviewed in or posts that you wrote. These ads work because they're segmented based on patterns amongst small-ish groups of people. Outbound should be treated similarly. Pro tip: this approach works WAY better over the phone than via email. The expectation for personalization and quality is much higher in emails than over the phone. Here are a few ideas for segmenting your lists so you don't have to personalize so much: ✅ By region/location If you sell anything brick & mortar, SLED, etc—segment your accounts by geographic region. You really don't have to personalize much when you can: - Name-drop local businesses/organizations - Drop the location This sounds like: "Hi David, we work with Fit & Fashion right down the road in SLU. It's Jason with ________. Ring a bell?" ✅ By tech stack Let's say you sell a tool that enhances Salesforce. Or Jira. Or some other specific tool. Segment your accounts by tech stack. This sounds like: "Hi Katie, we're partnering with engineering teams who wish sandboxes were way easier to set up and use in Zendesk. It's Jason with ________. Got a min?" ✅ By persona Let's say you sell to ecomm solutions to SMB retail business owners. This sounds like: "Hi Tom, we're working with several retailers in the Seattle area. It's Jason with ________. Heard our name tossed around?" (H/T Armand Farrokh) ✅ By trigger This list gets pretty extensive. Hiring, job changes, customer/champion change, M&A, expansion/contraction, promotion, etc This sounds like: "Hi Dave, congrats on the promotion. It's Jason from __________. Was just talking to a new HR leader yesterday who's running into all kinds of complications scaling international hiring. That by chance something you're running into?" ✅ By niche One of my favorites. Take a well-recognized logo like Rippling. You could go after direct competitors, but it's even better to focus on non-competitive products selling to the same personas. This sounds like: "Hi Cierra, we're working with Rippling to help scale their product suite for HR leaders. It's Jason with ________. Thought you might want to hear how they've doubled ACV in the last 6 months. Have a min?" ~~~ Before you think of personalization, start with segmentation. Do the work upfront to avoid having to customize too much. Agree or disagree? We're training entire sales orgs at companies like Shopify, Rippling, Zoom, and many more on how to land more meetings with outbound. Interested in custom training for your team? DM or email me jason [at] outboundsquad.com for more info.

~30% of my pipeline comes from Closed Lost opportunities. So when an opportunity is Closed Lost, don’t let it go cold. If you have a sales engagement tool, set up an automation rule to auto add the primary contact into a Closed Lost Cadence, if not, just do this manually. Here’s an example cadence: 🔹 Step 1 (30 days post-CL) → Manual email (personalised) Summarise their focus, why the deal was lost, and let them know you’ll stay in touch. 📩 Example: "Hey Billybob, really enjoyed working with you and learning more about [initiative], like increasing conversion rates from 12% → 15% and driving $100K pipeline per AE. Appreciate other priorities took precedent, but I’ll stay in touch until timing makes sense". 🔹 Step 2 (55 days post-CL) → Automated email (deposit) Share a relevant resource. 📩 Example: "Pipeline is a challenge for most teams - thought this 30MPC webinar on account segmentation might be useful". 🔹 Step 3 (80 days post-CL) → Evaluate next steps Any team growth? Leadership changes? Priority shifts? No change → Stay in Closed Lost cadence. Key changes → Move to a prospecting cadence & re-engage. 🔹 Step 4 (105 days post-CL) → Phone call + LinkedIn touch (check-in). 🔹 Step 5 (130 days post-CL) → Automated email (new product update). 📩 Example: "See how Salesloft Rhythm incorporates AI into workflows to prioritise prospects most likely to convert into meetings [link]". 🔹 Step 6 (155 days post-CL) → Call (check-in). 🔹 Step 7 (180+ days post-CL) → Final review & decision No movement/changes? Pause outreach or move to a light nurture cadence. New priorities? Add to outbound cadence with a tailored approach. The goal? Stay relevant without being intrusive - so when timing aligns, you’re already on their radar. Are you keeping tabs on your Closed Lost Opps, or letting them slip? #sales #cadences #closedlost

We grew an email list from 0 to 500K subscribers in just 10 months. If I were starting from scratch today, here's exactly how I'd do it again: 1) Nail the Lead Magnet: The fastest way to grow your email list is by offering something valuable in exchange for an email. Think of it like this: people won't give up their email for nothing. Create something they can't ignore: a discount, exclusive content, or a tool they can’t find elsewhere. For us, offering free travel guides was a game-changer. 2) Optimize for Opt-Ins Everywhere: Your website, blog, and even social media accounts should work like opt-in machines. For example: - Add pop-ups and fly outs on key pages. - Place CTAs above the fold. - Use scroll-triggered modals when visitors are engaged. We tested endlessly, and this attention to detail paid off big. 3) Tap Into Paid Growth Early: Ads get a bad rep, but when done right, they’re a growth accelerant. We launched targeted ads promoting our lead magnet and built a funnel that turned traffic into email signups. Paid campaigns helped us scale fast while testing which offers resonated with our audience. 4) Partner with the Right People: Collaborations can grow your list faster than any single effort. Whether it’s co-branded giveaways, email swaps, or shoutouts, find brands or creators that share your target audience. A well-executed partnership will unlock exponential growth. One really unique thing we did: We bought a bunch of viral social accounts and rebranded them for our business. This was huge in kickstarting massive and sustainable growth. And we fast-tracked the social proof we needed to build trust and scale quickly. 5) Focus on Quality, Not Just Quantity: A big list is meaningless without engagement. From Day 1, we focused on high-value emails to ensure subscribers opened, clicked, and stayed. Here’s a pro tip: Consistency wins. Sending emails weekly or bi-weekly keeps your list warm and engaged. 6) Build a Content Machine: Pair email growth with an organic content strategy that feeds your funnel. Blog posts, social media, and SEO aren’t just good for traffic—they create trust. The more valuable content you share, the more people will want to hear from you. 7) Leverage Cheap Marketing Channels in Ways Others Haven’t: This is going to ruffle some feathers but we absolutely dominated cold email for user acquisition. To the tune of 6 figure subscriber acquisition. No one was doing cold email for B2C the way we did it. This proved to be the most scalable yet cheapest acquisition channel we had. — To recap: - Offer something valuable for free to grow your list. - Use every channel—paid and organic—to drive opt-ins. - Build relationships with partners who already have your audience. The result? A system that scales. Your list is the one asset you fully own—start building it ASAP!

After sending over a billion emails for 600+ brands… here are my 7 top tips for selecting the right audience. You can have the best email creative in the world — but if it lands in the wrong inbox, it won’t convert. Audience is everything. Here’s what we’ve learned at esbconnect after years of powering customer acquisition for brands like Tails.com | B Corp , AA Insurance and ASOS.com : 1. Target by behaviour, not just demographics Look for people who open, click, and act. Intent beats age and gender every time. 2. But… don’t always go for the obvious behaviour When Tails.com wanted to reach new pet owners, you'd assume targeting people engaging with pet brands would outperform, right? Wrong. They were being over-targeted. Instead, we found higher conversion by targeting segments engaging with health, home and subscription offers — less crowded and more curious. 3. Test broad, then narrow Start wide to understand what actually performs — then double down. Too niche too soon and you lose scale and surprise wins. 4. Layer in recency Someone who interacted with an email yesterday is more likely to convert than someone who did 3 weeks ago. Recency = relevance. 5. Don’t ignore ‘non-buyers’ Sometimes your best audience is one that’s never bought from the category — yet. Think curious, not converted. 6. Think beyond income — target by contextual wealth We’ve seen clients waste budget by targeting £100k+ earners assuming they’re affluent. But some of the wealthiest people are those on modest incomes with low outgoings — think high equity, long-term property owners with few financial ties. 7. Make it locally relevant A £1m house in London doesn’t signal the same wealth as it does in Scotland or Wales. Tailor your audience selection to geography and cost of living — precision wins. Audience strategy isn’t guesswork. It’s data, nuance, and constant testing. Want help finding your best segments? We’ve got 17 million opted-in UK profiles and years of experience to test with.

Gonna step on my marketing soapbox for a sec.. I’m convinced every company needs to have an always-on content motion. If not, you’ll fall into the pit of irrelevancy & unsustainable marketing costs. Let me explain. Two macro trends are making business harder than ever before. The first is competition. In 2016, there were 2.9 million new businesses formed. In 2024: 5.2 million. It’s never been easier to build a business, the cost of failure has never been lower, and now AI will make competition even more fierce. The second is growth. Growing your business will be harder than ever. More competition = more food, same number of mouths to feed. + increasing paid marketing costs. So, where does this leave a company fighting for relevance & growth? There are 3 ways companies can stand out today. 1) Technical moat Most B2B companies think their technology is a moat. With AI, few companies ACTUALLY have a technical moat. 2) Brand Brand is a company’s point of view in the world. It waterfalls down from visual identity & content all the way to sales calls & UX. Brand has never been more important. 3) Customer obsession. When I look for overlap btwn fast-growing startups and F50 brands, one timeless truth emerges… Obsession with customer. They hunt for the biggest problems their customers experience & ship solutions rapidly to solve them. They constantly talk to their customers & only care what customers think. Which brings me back to content. Content provides a rare 3-for-1. It allows you to carve out two moats in business (brand & customer obsession), while driving sustainable customer growth. But content is broad, so what does an always-on content motion look like in practice? Great company content follows a simple 5-step playbook. Step 1: 60-minute interview with a kickass subject matter expert - Should be an employee, customer, prospect, or industry leader that has a tactical strategy that your ICP would love to learn from Step 2: Turn that interview into a tactical playbook that lives onsite - 1,000-word piece following the challenge-idea-process-results-lessons framework - Consider email-gating the playbook to grow email list faster Step 3: Send out a weekly go-to industry read for your ICP - Should have a clear mission statement that follows this format: [newsletter] helps [market of 1] with [problem] by [solution] - Headline story (~300 words) should be a short version of the SME playbook & drives readers to full version Step 4: Create social content that drives traffic to your content - Turn playbook/newsletter content into short & long-form social posts that can be published from company & exec social - Posts should be valuable enough to live on their own, but have enticing enough CTAs to drive traffic to anchor content Step 5: Gather insights & finagle strategy - Track % of demos requested that have a content lead source - Understand what content drives highest in-niche engagement rate & optimize for those

How we generate leads is changing because people are tired of endless forms. They want value upfront. So, how do we balance the pros and cons? The answer lies in a blended approach. Think about it this way. Gated content shouldn't be your only lead-generation tactic.  It should be part of a broader strategy that includes other, more engaging methods. For example, using interactive experiences. Consider using immersive content. This type of content attracts attention and generates interest before you ask for contact information. Interactive quizzes, calculators, and assessments offer value upfront. They engage prospects and provide personalized insights, which builds trust and makes them more likely to share their details later. Other types of immersive content, like virtual tours or interactive demos, showcase your product from another angle. They also create a memorable experience and show your expertise, which can be a powerful lead magnet. Remember that using interactive content for #leadgeneration isn't about replacing gated content entirely.  It's about offering a mix of options.  As Forrester suggests, "B2B marketers need to diversify their lead generation strategies beyond traditional gated content." What content strategies are you using to balance lead generation and audience engagement?  #b2bmarketing #demandgeneration #marketingstrategy

I'm getting a ton of pissed off SaaS GTM leaders in my LinkedIn comments saying, “Isn’t Inbound-Led Outbound JUST marketing?” Here's my response to haters (like Mark Kosoglow) and a breakdown of Inbound-Led Outbound 101: BACKGROUND: - I’ve been calling the GTM motion I’m building at RB2B “Inbound-Led Outbound” - It revolves around Influencer-led content activity that drives website visits - Those site visits trigger messaging from the influencer that create business outcomes Part One: The Influencer-Led Model 1. TikTok’s interest-based algorithm and LinkedIn’s thought leadership ad ushered in an era of high-quality organic content being exponentially more valuable than paid ads. 2. Think about how much more focus you’re giving this post than a carousel of similar businesses using ZoomInfo or an obvious case study interview. 3. The best organic content creators build more trust than any other marketing mechanisms. They are building human-to-human connection at scale. 4. The kicker is we immediately know when they have created something great, and can inexpensively promote it to target prospects with ads. I believe Executive-level influencer marketing is the most capital efficient way to generate awareness that has ever existed. We haven’t fully accepted this yet in B2B. The output of Part One for me at RB2B is: - LinkedIn posts every other day - Guest spots many podcasts/webinars in B2B as possible - Try to give keynotes whenever people will have me Part Two: Capture the Site Visit at the Person-Level We believe that a site visit is the best intent signal available, by far. Before RB2B, company-level website visitor identity was ubiquitous. But there is the obvious limitation of needing to know who the actual person is. With RB2B, we can now capture contact information at the person-level and trigger sales workflows. Part Three: Warm Outreach From the Influencer An underlying assumption of the Inbound-Led Outbound thesis is that response rates are steadily trending towards zero. Who will prospects respond to when there is so much inbox noise? 1. Someone they know and trust 2. If it’s the perfect message at the perfect time Said differently, if I were to send an email or LinkedIn message to a regular engager in my audience, they will probably respond. If someone on my team were to email that person, the response rate would be much lower. Here’s the magic of the influencer’s profile doing the outreach: The influencer can book the meeting, but they don't have to take the call. These profiles are more than just marketing machines. They are scalable sales machines. Outreach for us means: - Pushing our site visitors to a Clay table - Filtering for ICP - Sending an AI email through Smartlead Which converts at 11%. Outreach for you might mean: - Filter to ICP - Connect on LI - Add to email flow - Make a warm call However you book outbound demos, just do the same thing. *Post continued in comments 👇

We cut 1,145 subscribers yesterday. What every founder should know about building a newsletter. When we launched THE ELEVATE GROUP newsletter in March 2024, we were obsessed with growth. We promoted it at every event, on every stage, in every room. It took us a year to reach >2,000 subscribers. And then the graph stopped moving. Flat as a pancake. Jingjin Liu and I looked at each other and said, “Is it us, or is it them?” So we pivoted. • We removed our newsletter from LinkedIn. • We started creating highly valuable lead magnets. • Plugged the newsletter sign-up on our LinkedIn posts that went viral. • Created high-value monthly events. • That change accelerated our list to 5,000+ within months. At first, it felt like success. The number kept climbing. The uncomfortable truth? The easier decision is always to keep adding. Vanity metrics give you a high. You tell yourself you’re growing when in reality you might just be bloating. We fell into that trap. So, the last 2 months, we asked a harder question: WHO is actually reading? And are they our ideal customer profile (ICP)? When we dug into the data, we discovered 1,145 subscribers who had never opened a single email. Not one. We made the decision to remove them. Here’s how we approached it: – Identified all subscribers with zero opens since sign-up. – Sent them an email with a one-click option to stay. – Sent a final reminder five days later. – Removed 1,145 who didn’t respond. What we learned: 1. Vanity vs. value. Growth feels good, but engagement is the only real measure. Chasing numbers distracted us in the early days. Now we chase quality numbers. 2. Lead magnets drive sign-ups, not loyalty. They bring people in, but they don’t keep people. Retention requires consistent value. 3. Data is non-negotiable. Without regular audits, you can’t separate volume from value. 4. Curation compounds. Removing inactive readers improves deliverability, boosts open rates, and sharpens your ICP. 5. Every dollar counts. Cleaning our list dropped our Kit cost from USD119/month to USD89/month. That’s $360 saved annually - capital we can reinvest elsewhere.     What we’ll do next: – Keep building lead magnets that solve real problems. – Audit the list quarterly, not annually. – Treat engagement as the growth metric, not volume. – Remember that fewer engaged readers > more silent ones. Scaling a newsletter is like scaling a company. The easiest decision is to chase numbers. The harder - but smarter - decision is to curate for depth. We see too many solopreneurs making avoidable mistakes. And we wish we could help. So Jingjin and I are testing a one-off event. Your questions, your situation, unfiltered advice. Not inspiration. Interrogation. Business lens only: Money and Outcomes. Join the waitlist here - https://lnkd.in/gj5KbyUB We’ll only run it if there’s demand. P.S. What’s one vanity metric you’ve chased before you learned better?