How to Successfully Build a B2B Email List: 10 Key Approaches
Trusty email is marketing’s equivalent of a battle-hardened veteran. It was there at the very start of the internet and has stood steady for half a decade, outlasting many other technologies.
It still ranks as one of the most effective sales channels. According to research by FirstPageSage, email demonstrated an ROI of 261% between 2018 and 2023.
Your email list can be one of your most valuable marketing assets. But how can you reach the highest-quality leads as quickly and cost-effectively as possible?
Let’s answer that question.
How to Build a High-Quality B2B Email List
Here’s an overview of the top ten methods for building a B2B email list that drives sales:
Offer lead magnets to capture emails
Optimize LinkedIn for email collection
Use gated webinars and virtual events
Create interactive quizzes and tools
Use exit-intent popups strategically
Build a B2B email list through partnerships
Leverage social media listening
Implement referral programs
Syndicate content
Utilize tools for prospecting and email gathering
Let’s look at each of these in depth.
1. Offer Lead Magnets to Capture Emails
A lead magnet is a free resource you offer in exchange for an email address. It’s a time-tested method for boosting sign-ups and works well in both inbound and outbound contexts.
Many ad platforms like Facebook even let you offer lead magnets and collect email addresses natively, without leaving the platform.
According to research by GetResponse, short-form written and video guides (like eBooks and tutorials) are most effective for lead generation. Fortunately, lead magnets are very easy to split-test, so finding what works best for your audience and product should be straightforward.
Here’s a roundup of lead magnets for you to try:
2. Optimize LinkedIn for Email Collection
LinkedIn is the world’s biggest B2B marketplace. Not all of your leads are on LinkedIn, but many are. A presence on the platform is as close to non-negotiable as it’s possible for a marketing strategy to be.
There are more opportunities for collecting email addresses on LinkedIn than you might imagine. You’ll find most success with a multi-pronged approach.
Use the following tactics to collect emails on LinkedIn:
Use LinkedIn lead-gen forms for ads: Run targeted LinkedIn ads with built-in lead-gen forms that allow users to sign up for their email list without leaving the platform.
Optimize your profile page for sign-ups: Premium members can add a custom button to their profile header that takes visitors directly to a newsletter landing page.
…aaaaaaand your posts: The custom icon/button will also appear in your byline at the top of your posts, so it’s really worth getting that Premium membership.
Engage in LinkedIn groups: Join industry-specific LinkedIn groups and engage regularly by sharing valuable content with embedded email sign-up CTAs.
Promote your newsletter in your content: Regularly post articles, videos, or updates that include links to sign up for newsletters (either in the post or in the comments).
Publish your newsletter natively: You can publish your newsletter natively on LinkedIn and invite your connections to subscribe. It’s not as good as owning your list outright, but it’s far better than not having subscribers at all.
3. Use Gated Webinars and Virtual Events
B2B prospects like webinars—a lot. According to research by Influno, they’re the highest-converting lead magnets for 73% of marketers.
The live format of webinars also makes them an excellent opportunity to build trust and engagement with your audience.
Here’s a quick-start guide for using webinars as lead magnets:
Build your webinar tech stack with tools like GoTo and WorkCast.
Research your market to identify “burning pain points” and focus your webinars on those topics. Remember, you can spy on your competitors, too.
Turn your best-attended webinars into recurring events that you host on a monthly or weekly basis.
Promote your webinar across all your B2B channels, including LinkedIn, email campaigns, and industry forums.
Reward attendees with follow-up materials, such as recordings or supplementary content to further strengthen engagement with your new subscribers.
Offer on-demand recorded webinars to reach potential subscribers who didn’t make it to the live event.
Running webinars can be more costly than other lead magnets, but they are invariably worth the extra resources given the subscriber numbers and engagement they can drive.
Webinars are powerful marketing tools. But generating organic sign-ups is often time-consuming. One way of fast-tracking your webinar strategy is by inviting pre-vetted B2B leads.
Artisan’s AI-enriched database contains over 300 million email addresses and our AI SDR can filter these leads based on your ideal customer profile (ICP) and send personalized, human-like outreach on autopilot. If you would like to see how Artisan can increase your revenue, get in touch to book a demo.
4. Create Interactive Quizzes and Tools
Interactive tools are among the most valuable—and underused—lead magnets you can offer to your potential customers.
Quizzes, calculators, audit tools, graders (like PageSpeed Insights), and the like are hyper-useful because they give personalized solutions to your subscribers rather than advice meant for a more general audience.
An important tip for interactive quizzes and tools is not to ask for an email either before a site visitor uses it or after they've received the results. Your competitors almost certainly offer similar tools that don’t require a sign-up. By adding friction, you increase the chances they’ll go elsewhere.
The same principle applies to results. A subscriber that goes through a lengthy quiz or assessment only to find gated content is sure to feel frustrated. You’ve likely experienced this yourself.
Instead, provide both the tool itself and results for “free”, without asking for an email. Offer in-depth results (that build on the free content) in exchange for an email address.
5. Use Exit-Intent Popups Strategically
Exit popups are controversial. Many marketers are convinced they annoy leads—deterring them from returning to a website—and are bad for SEO. Well, they’re wrong on both accounts.
Exit popups are effective. Research by OptinMonster shows that exit popups can convert an additional 2% to 4% of your website traffic. Those aren’t stratospheric numbers but they shouldn't be overlooked, either. There’s also no evidence they harm SEO when done in the right way.
Finding B2B leads is only one part of the battle. When they’re on your site, you actually have to convert them. And exit popups fulfill two functions. First, they re-engage site visitors that have seen your lead magnet but thought, “Not for me!” In these cases, offering a different lead magnet or emphasizing a different pain point can be highly effective.
Second, exit popups make sure that visitors see your lead magnet offer before leaving—for example, if they landed on a blog post and missed your email sign-up form.
The key point is to tailor your exit popup and lead magnet to different pages (blog posts, case studies, landing pages, etc.). A checklist titled “How to Build a Chicken Shed: 7 Steps” will appeal to somebody who has just read a blog post on a similar topic. Alternatively, a video on the topic of “Growing a Chicken Farm Business” will resonate better with somebody who’s just looked at a case study.
6. Build a B2B Email List Through Partnerships
Ah, the trusty email partnership. In many ways, “sharing” email subscribers is a no-brainer. It’s a chance for two parties to quickly grow their lists with few downsides.
However, there are risks. If you run “list shares” too often, there’s a high chance you’ll be perceived as spammy. Of equal danger is sharing your contact list with a third party that doesn’t value your subscribers in the same way as you, which will harm any trust you’ve built.
It goes without saying that you should never simply hand over your subscribers’ details. Always give them the opportunity to opt in to your partner’s list. Equally, only engage in joint campaigns with businesses that you trust.
Here are some ideas for building your B2B email list through partnerships:
Offer joint lead magnets like white papers or industry studies.
Run events and webinars that draw on you and your partner’s different areas of expertise.
Offer a free resource from your partner that your subscribers will find valuable.
Promote your partner in an email specifically about other businesses, e.g. “Ten Bloggers in the B2B Space You Should Follow.”
Remember, the key to successful partnerships is to give your subscribers the clear option to opt in and avoid doing them too often. As always, the focus should be on providing value.
7. Leverage Social Media Listening
Social media listening software monitors social media platforms and alerts you when particular phrases, hashtags, and brand phrases (including those of competitors) are mentioned.
Social media listening for building a B2B email list is a time-consuming process with a lot of manual input. Automation tools are absolutely essential, though some degree of human input will still be required.
Because of the significant time commitment, social media listening for list-building purposes is best targeted at high-value prospects.
A social media listening strategy will look something like this:
Monitor industry keywords and hashtags.
Identify companies and decision-makers that fit your ICP.
Engage with prospects via comments and direct messages.
Offer valuable content or lead magnets.
Capture emails through an opt-in form.
B2B decision makers are likely to receive dozens, if not hundreds, of pitches every day on platforms like LinkedIn. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that all outreach is personalized, concise, and value-focused.
Creating personalized messages at scale on LinkedIn requires a substantial time investment. Artisan and its AI SDR called Ava can automate LinkedIn messaging with human-level personalization. If you’d like to see how Artisan can help build your B2B email list, get in touch to arrange a demo.
8. Implement Referral Programs
Referral marketing consistently ranks as one of the most effective methods of generating new customers. Prospects have greater trust in brands that their friends and colleagues recommend.
But referral marketing doesn’t just apply to sales. It’s also a powerful way of leveraging your existing subscriber base to generate more sign-ups.
The usual method of generating referrals applies to building a B2B email list:
Reach out to your existing subscribers.
Ask for referrals to relevant B2B contacts.
Offer incentives for successful referrals.
Provide a lead magnet to optimize sign-ups.
Rinse and repeat.
Here are some examples of incentives you can offer to drive referrals:
Gift cards
Loyalty points
Access to premium features
Free consultation
Exclusive content or resources
Extended trial period
Branded merchandise (even B2B brands can have fun with this one)
Charitable donation on subscriber’s behalf
Modern tools make it easier than ever to set up advanced referral programs with email sequences, points and rewards accounts, and analytics. Once you start to grow your email list, you can set up your referral infrastructure and let it do its thing, with minimal further input.
9. Syndicate content
Syndicated content lets you access the audiences of established brands and information outlets. You can then link to your signup page, usually at the bottom of the article or in the author bio, and generate new subscribers.
Keep in mind that content syndication isn’t just about guest blogging. An effective strategy has multiple prongs, including reposting content on other websites, press releases, journalistic mentions, and more.
Here are the main types of content syndication:
Guest blogging
Content networks like Outbrain and Taboola
Repurposing for content-based sites like LinkedIn and Medium
Third-party newsletters
Journalistic outreach (especially for in-house studies)
Press releases
Influencer shares
Aggregator sites
Content syndication isn’t about reposting content everywhere you possibly can. The outcome of this approach will simply be to waste your sales team and employees’ time.
Rather, it’s about building a network of strategic partnerships and redistribution channels that maximize the reach of content assets posted on your site (blog posts, white papers, press releases, etc.) and original content posted on third-party sites.
Over time, as you test which channels perform best, you’ll form a clearer idea of which third-party sources you can rely on and where to devote your syndication efforts for optimal results.
10. Utilize Tools for Prospecting and Email Gathering
Inbound marketing centered around opt-in forms is the bread and butter of email list building. But it’s important not to overlook other methods. Active prospecting tools can automate and simplify the process of finding your target audience’s emails and help you connect with the right decision-makers.
With the emergence of AI lead-gen tools in recent years, it’s now possible to access high-quality prospect data and send personalized outreach that is indistinguishable from human-written content. For example, Artisan, a platform that’s leading the way when it comes to AI-driven email outreach, can automate most aspects of prospecting and outreach.
Of course, you can’t simply add these leads to your newsletter database. They haven’t opted in, after all. But you can initiate a relationship where you guide them to a subscription form, ideally with a lead magnet on offer.
When picking prospecting tools, check for the following features:
Legal compliance (GDPR, CAN-SPAM Act, CCPA)
Data quality and hygiene methods
Size of email database (most are over 100 million leads)
Integrations with your tech stack (CRM, ERP, mailing list platform, etc.)
Quality of customer support
Review websites like G2 and Trustpilot are useful for checking the lead quality and the level of customer support.
Maintaining and Nurturing Your B2B Email List
Once your email list is built, it’s important to maintain it and nurture contacts to ensure engagement and avoid high unsubscribe rates.
There are three ongoing tasks that will ensure the long-term sustainability of your list:
Regular list cleaning and hygiene checks
Segmentation and content targeting
Consistent communication
1. Regularly Clean Your List
Email list “hygiene” is the practice of removing inactive and unengaged subscribers from your list.
There are two aspects to cleaning an email list:
Sending out “engagement check” emails: This involves sending emails to unengaged subscribers to confirm they still want to receive your broadcasts
Removing inactive emails: This is a more technical process where you use a tool or outsourced services to check for indicators such as invalid ISPs, syntax errors, and duplicate emails.
It’s important to run regular hygiene checks because inactive and unengaged subscribers will skew your true engagement and sales metrics.
2. Segment Your Audience
Segmentation allows you to send targeted, relevant messages. This will lead to higher overall engagement.
Here are the main ways of segmenting your B2B list:
Demographics
Technographics
Job title
Industry
Company size
Purchase history
Engagement level
Location
Interests
Stage in your sales funnel
Segmentation doesn’t need to be a complex and convoluted process. For example, suppose you run a , and your leads fit into a well-defined group in terms of demographics and engagement. In that case, you might simply segment leads into three categories based on company size—small, medium, and large.
3. Provide Value Consistently
How much is too much when it comes to email? Fortunately, we have a pretty clear answer to this.
Studies show that 2 to 3 times per week is optimal. It’s always good practice to run your own tests, but twice-weekly is a useful starting point.
One of the big mistakes that businesses make with their email lists is over-focusing on sales.
Yes, sales have an important place. But the majority of your broadcasts should provide value, whether that’s in the form of educational content, entertainment (like events your company has been involved in) or free offers.
Start Building a Strong B2B Email List Today
Building a solid B2B email list isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. There are lots of different channels to account for—social media, search engines, joint partnerships, and many more.
All companies, and startups in particular, need efficient, affordable, and scalable tools if they want to build the best possible B2B email list. These tools range from traditional if-then automation apps capable of posting on different social media platforms right through to the new generation of AI email marketing and lead prospecting solutions.
Artisan is an example of a lead-prospecting tool that focuses on B2B email outreach. It’s leading the market in humanlike automation capabilities, lead data quality, and analytics.
A sample of B2B lead data in Artisan
Artisan’s virtual SDR is called Ava, and she offers the following functionality:
Contact information (emails and phone numbers) from a pool of over 300 million B2B leads
AI-based scraping, verification, and enrichment of lead data
Email address segmentation based on your ICPs
Highly targeted email personalization based on a “waterfall” methodology
Email inbox warm-up and email deliverability optimization
Automated A/B and multivariate testing of cold B2B email marketing campaigns
Integrations with other email marketing software and business apps
If you’d like to see how Artisan can help you build a high-quality list of B2B emails quickly and automate results-based outbound campaigns, get in touch to book a demo.
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