Author: Felipe Gallo

Raise your hand if you have a love-hate relationship with outreach. I’ll go first…🙋‍♂️

Let’s face it. Outreach is frustrating, time-consuming, and, honestly, boring. And when you are just getting started, it can feel like you are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Yet, it’s critical to so many facets of marketing. And as much as you want to punt it to the bottom of your to-do list, it’ll continue to light up like a neon sign on your monthly task list.

From link building to influencer marketing, outreach isn’t going anywhere. Thankfully, a handful of blogger outreach tools make this task slightly less painful.

As with any other marketing tool, there are a lot of unruly weeds to filter through to find the right blogger outreach tool for your needs.

But today is your lucky day. I’ve done the hard work for you (so you don’t have to) by testing and ranking the best blogger outreach tools.

Insert a round of applause. You’re welcome. More rounds of applause.

Ok, enough is enough. I promised you the best blogger outreach tools (and which ones to avoid), so here’s a curated list of tools to add to your marketing arsenal ASAP.

And the last one might surprise you, but no peeking.

Real quick, before we dive in…

Why blogging outreach is so important

Here are some stats on blogging outreach that might surprise you. 

• 50% of bloggers perform outreach for guest posts to 10 or fewer contacts a month, while 7% of them pitch to 100 or more blogs per month
• 70% of bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year say they’re active or very active promoters of their blogs, compared to only 14% of lower-income bloggers
• Bloggers who earn over $50,000 per year from their blogs are over twice as likely to focus on getting email subscribers compared to lower-income bloggers. They also use 343% as many email-collection methods as lower-income bloggers

See a trend? 

Top-earning bloggers do a ton of outreach. But it’s not just about quantity. It’s about quality. And efficiency. Nobody’s got time to do outreach all day, every day.

So, without further ado, here are the top outreach tools to streamline your workflow and maximize your results. 

1. BuzzStream

BuzzStream is a tool that helps individuals and businesses manage their online relationships and content promotion efforts.

Digital marketing agencies, public relations firms, and content creators covet this tool. BuzzStream helps streamline outreach by making tracking and managing relationships with influencers, bloggers, and other contacts easier.

BuzzStream is, without a doubt, one of the secret sauces to a successful link building outreach campaign.

Main Features:

• Research prospects: Easily create targeted prospect lists, add new contacts, and automatically gather contact information and metrics. Streamline your work by building comprehensive profiles and spending less time on spreadsheets.
• Build automatic lists: Save time and effort on research with the automatic prospecting feature. This tool quickly gathers the most relevant results from web and SERP searches to build your outreach list in seconds.
• Emailing made easy: Send personalized, trackable emails to your prospects by scheduling and sending automated follow-up emails. Paid plans include access to email templates, setting up email drip campaigns, and tracking and managing email conversations within the platform.
• Manage campaigns with a bird’s eye view: Stay up-to-date on the progress of your campaign with the instant overview feature. See which prospects you’ve already contacted, who’s on board to participate, and who you still need to connect with.
• Access to detailed reports: Improve the effectiveness of your blogger outreach strategy by viewing insights by email template and subject line. The platform shows you which ones get the best responses so that you can make informed decisions about your outreach strategy.

Price: BuzzStream offers four different pricing plans: Starter $24/month, Growth $124/month, Professional $299/month, and Custom $999/month. The first three tiers offer a 14-day free trial.

Who should use it: BuzzStream is the perfect outreach tool for SEO link building and digital PR if you want to land some of the best links on the internet. Think of it like a blogger outreach service.

2. Hunter

Hunter is a tool that helps you find email addresses and other contact information for literally anyone at an organization.

It’s my go-to tool when searching for email addresses associated with a specific domain or website or trying to find contact information for a specific individual.

It also provides tools for verifying email addresses, tracking email opens and clicks, and managing your outreach efforts.

Main Features:

• Email search: Allows you to search for email addresses by domain, company name, or individual name, using various search filters and options.
• Email verification: Verifies the accuracy and deliverability of email addresses, helping you ensure that your emails reach their intended recipients.
• Domain search: This enables you to search for email addresses by domain, allowing you to find all the email addresses associated with a particular website or company.
• Contact management: Offers tools for managing and organizing contact lists, including the ability to import and export lists, add tags and notes, and create custom fields.

Price: Hunter offers various pricing plans, from a free account to a full-blown business plan starting at $349/month.

Who should use it: Anyone. You can use Hunter to land a job interview or score a guest post feature. If you are looking for someone’s email address, Hunter is the go-to email finder tool.

I love using Hunter and LinkedIn in tandem. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. I use LinkedIn as my database to find specific names for roles within an organization, and then I jump over to Hunter to find and confirm email addresses.

Let’s take a look at an example in action.

I had a niche site reach out to me, seeking advice on getting accepted to the Wayfair affiliate program. Their application on the generic affiliate platform had been pending for months without any progress.

They were ranking #1 on Google for the keyword “mid-century modern dining tables,” bringing in thousands of visitors per day without access to an affiliate program (read: missing out on material commissions).

So I went straight to Wayfair’s LinkedIn page and searched for “affiliate” in the keyword box.

That gave me 25 employee names to choose from. Then I dropped all those names into Hunter, found their email addresses, and within 48 hours, the application got approved, and affiliate commissions started flooding in.

Talk about a success story! This combination of tools is a must-have in your outreach process. Trust me, it works.

Hunter helps you build and maintain accurate and effective email lists and makes it easier to find and connect with the people and businesses you want to reach.

3. Pitchbox

Pitchbox is a comprehensive tool that helps you manage and streamline your influencer outreach campaigns, including link building and content promotion.

It provides all the necessary features to keep you organized, build more high-quality links, and achieve your SEO goals.

Main Features:

• Contact discovery: Find the contact information for an influential blogger, webmaster, or social media influencer in minutes and with virtually no effort.
• SEO tool integration: Do you already use other SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, or Moz? With Pitchbox’s integrations, you can access this valuable data to help you improve your outreach and link building efforts.
• Smart technology: Pitchbox guarantees their outreach campaigns will have superior deliverability and response rates. The combination of SmartTemplates™, email sequencing, Natural Sending Patterns™ (NSP), and personalization on the platform sets them apart.
• SEO CRM: Keep your eyes on all your link outreach efforts with an SEO CRM to provide a one-stop shop for SEO metrics, link data, and email communications.
• Link monitoring: Stay informed of any critical changes to your backlinks and ensure you don’t miss out on important link equity by automatically tracking them over time.

Price: Pitchbox offers two tiers of pricing plans: Professional starting at $495/month and Enterprise starting at $1350/month.

Who should use it: There’s no doubt about it. Link builders designed Pitchbox specifically with other link builders in mind. Never miss out on link building opportunities again with the help of Pitchbox.

4. Upfluence

Upfluence is a platform that helps businesses and organizations connect with influencers and content creators for marketing and promotional purposes.

This platform has various tools and features for finding, organizing, and working with influencers. It also tracks and measures the success of influencer marketing campaigns.

Main Features:

• Influencer search: Allows you to search for influencers and content creators based on various criteria, such as location, topic, audience size, and engagement rate.
• Campaign management: Offers tools for managing and organizing influencer marketing campaigns, including the ability to create and send pitches, track responses and replies, and schedule and publish content.
• Relationship management: Stay on top of relationships with influencers and content creators, including the ability to add notes and tags, set reminders, and track interactions and engagement.
• Analytics and reporting: Get insight into analytics to measure the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns, including the ability to track the reach and engagement of influencer content.

Price: Upfluence offers a free Chrome extension, but for access to the best features, you’ll find a paywall with three tiers (Growth, Scale, Enterprise). One user reports paying $795 per user per month.

Who should use it: Upfluence helps businesses and organizations find, connect, and collaborate with influencers and content creators. If you’re looking to find the perfect influencer for your niche, Upfluence is your tool.

5. Respona

Response is a platform that helps businesses and organizations streamline and optimize their digital PR and content marketing efforts.

Main Features:

• Find outreach opportunities: Search Respona’s live engine to locate the ideal matches for your outreach efforts, or import them from your preferred apps.
• Simple email automation: Easily create and customize email drip sequences and automate any follow-ups.
• Contact discovery: If you are uncertain who to reach out to, Respona will use job title and seniority to determine the most appropriate contact for each opportunity.
• Personalized outreach: Make your emails stand out from the crowd by incorporating a personalized touch with the help of AI.
• Team inbox: Keep track of your campaigns in one universal inbox for a collaborative effort.

Price: Respona offers a 7-day free trial to play around with all its features. You can upgrade to a Starter plan at $79/month if you love it.

Who should use it: Do you participate in link building, content promotion, blogger outreach, or digital PR? Well, Respona is for you to simplify your outreach effort. And the case studies prove it. In 2 years, ClicData landed 1,500 new referring domains using Respona. 

6. Mailshake

Mailshake is an email outreach and automation platform that helps you streamline and optimize your outreach and follow-up processes.

People often know Mailshake for its features for automating and managing email campaigns. But have you heard of The Prospect Finder?

As the name implies, The Prospect Finder tool identifies potential prospects for your outreach campaigns. You can search for prospects based on various criteria, such as industry, location, company size, and job title.

Thanks to Prospect Finder, you can quickly and easily fill up your pipeline with qualified leads by locating the business contact information of key decision-makers.

Main Features:

• Filter your prospects: Quickly and easily narrow down your prospects by role, location, company, or any combination thereof.
• Universal platform: Say goodbye to using multiple tools – Mailshake allows you to find prospects, automate your cold outreach, and save time and money in one go.
• No added fees: Customers of Mailshake already have access to Prospect Finder as part of their subscription.

Price: Are you looking for a free tool? Well, you’re in luck. You can get 50 free leads with Mailshake’s Prospect Finder. For paid plans, prices start at $58/month.

Who should use it: If you already use Mailshake for your email campaigns, using the Prospect Finder tool is a no-brainer. Saving time and money is the key to any business endeavor.

7. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery and analysis platform that helps you identify popular and trending content. It does this by focusing on metrics that provide meaningful insights to find respected influential leaders, authors, and creators with active followers and real digital credibility.

Main Features:

• Content discovery: This tool can find popular and trending content. You can search by using keywords, domains, authors, or social networks.
• Content analysis: This tool gives information and explanations about how well certain content is doing. It measures things such as the number of shares on social media, links, and website traffic from other sites.
• Content alerts: You can create alerts for keywords or topics and get notifications when new content includes those words or topics.
• Influencer identification: Find and connect with popular people in your field or specific area of interest. You can search for these influencers based on their topic, location, or social media platform.

Price: BuzzSumo offers a variety of pricing plans, starting with a free 30-day free trial and working its way up through the tiers: Content Creation $199/month, PR & Comms $299/month, Suite $499/month, Enterprise $999/month.

Who should use it: BuzzSumo helps you find popular and effective content. It also gives you information and analysis to improve your content marketing. You can use it to find bloggers who are relevant to your content.

8. Ninja Outreach

Ninja Outreach is an influencer and blogger marketing outreach software that helps you find the right influencer (by filtering through millions of insights) to capture your target audience’s attention.

But it doesn’t stop there. Ninja Outreach also has various features to help you streamline your link building campaigns. Say goodbye to guest posting as your only link building strategy.

Main Features:

• Lead generation at scale: Generating leads won’t be an issue when you can access the millions of profiles in the NinjaOutreach database. Just type in relevant keywords related to your target niche and location to quickly and easily find business leads.
• Find Instagram and Twitter Influencers: Don’t let your social media influencer leads run dry by immediately emailing your Instagram influencer leads or adding them to a planned email campaign.
• Automate link building: Focus on the link building opportunities that are most important. Forget manual filtering — you can now use built-in, one-click filters to easily identify sponsored posts, interviews, podcasts, guest posts, giveaways, infographics, and resource pages.

Price: Are you ready to try Ninja Outreach risk-free? You can do so with a 7-day free trial. After the trial period ends, you can upgrade to a paid plan starting at $99/month.

Who should use it: Ninja Outreach has many features and caters to all needs. From link building to influencer campaigns, Ninja Outreach has you covered for your next blogger outreach campaign.

9. Crunchbase

Crunchbase is an online platform that provides information on startup companies, investments, and people in the business world.

This website has information on over 150 million companies, people, investors, and funds. Entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors use it to learn about companies, discover new opportunities, and make informed decisions.

Main Features: 

Crunchbase is one of my go-to tools for cold outreach email campaigns. 

Why? With Crunchbase, I can:

• Search for businesses that align with my desired target audience
• Find people to contact with accurate contact information
• Email the decision-makers within Crunchbase

Price: Contact data is only available in the Crunchbase Pro plan, starting at $49/month.

Who should use it: If you are a business owner or marketing manager, Crunchbase should 100% hold a spot in your tech stack. Don’t sleep on the power of Crunchbase to qualify potential targets and get instant access to verified contact information.

Bonus: Blogger outreach tools to avoid

Now that we have covered some of my favorite blogger outreach tools that actually work, let’s take a look at some of the tools that you should avoid (and that other top-ranking blog posts recommend):

Inkybee

Neil Patel ranks Inkybee as the seventh-best blogger outreach tool due to its “Ongoing Blog Discovery” feature. This software can scour the internet to consistently find blogs in your niche and serve you the best opportunities on a silver platter.

This service sounds wonderful. However, based on my research, this tool is “taking a break,”…which is odd.

Maybe they are getting ready to release an updated version with better features. If so, great! I look forward to putting it to the test.

I’ve been keeping an eye on this one for a while – a year, in fact, so I’ll take it with a grain of salt. There are many other blogger outreach tools available. Don’t waste your time with this one.

BlogDash

BlogDash makes its way onto G2’s “Best Blogger Outreach Software” list, but I’m not convinced it should’ve made the cut. It has a 3.7 out of 5-star rating with 28 reviews.

Like Inkybee, the website isn’t responsive when I try to take this blogger outreach tool for a spin (showing a blank webpage and a “not secure” message).

I wouldn’t touch BlogDash with a ten-foot pole. But hopefully, it’s just under construction, and I’ll get to try it down the road. Fingers crossed.

Wrapping up

Outreach for link building and scoring coveted guest posts can be tedious, even for experienced SEO professionals. That’s why many people turn to a link building service to help them.

The process involves:

• Sending personalized blog outreach, which causes a significant drain on your resources.
• Scouring the internet for contact information.
• Building relationships.

You could waste weeks searching for the right blogger who never responds, or worse, the email bounces, forcing you to start the process from scratch.

In order to make the most of your outreach campaign, it’s important to have the right marketing tools. These tools will help you streamline the process and achieve meaningful results.

As for what I used to scale my SEO agency over the last three years: BuzzStream and Hunter. These tools are a match made in heaven. You really can’t go wrong. Say goodbye to manual outreach for good.

Here’s the thing about B2B marketing — it’s a lot different from its B2C counterpart, but there are parallels you can draw when it comes to marketing channels. 

Marketing products and services to business professionals means taking a different approach from what one might typically consider “traditional marketing.” Many people mistakenly believe that the channels B2C marketers use for brand promotion aren’t useful for B2B companies. 

However, that’s not true at all. 

You can use many of those same marketing channels for B2B brand promotion. You just have to use them differently. What’s more, not all marketing channels are created equal. Some are far more effective than others based on your B2B audience. 

The key? 

Knowing where to focus your attention first. Which marketing channels should you test the waters with before analyzing results and focusing on the most productive? 

In this article, we’ll walk you through a series of B2B marketing channels excellent for brands looking to get their name out there. 

What Makes a Marketing Channel Great for B2B Brand Promotion?

Before jumping in, let’s take a moment to touch on what B2B businesses should look for in a marketing channel. 

First off, your target audience needs to frequent this channel. That means understanding who you’re marketing to and how they like to receive information. 

These days, the vast majority of people get their information online. So digital marketing channels are the first choice for B2B marketers everywhere. 

Second, it needs to be something that’s going to fit comfortably into your marketing budget. You don’t want to break the bank and cut into your profits. 

The types of digital marketing we’ll discuss here have excellent ROI potential. Far better than traditional marketing tactics such as direct mail. 

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Finally, remember that the channel you choose shouldn’t be your only marketing venture. 

For example, you can’t bank on SEO alone and expect to succeed. Marketing is about trying things out, moving in new directions, and learning from your mistakes. 

Google Analytics is one of the best ways to learn and improve. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the newest version of this tool, and it’ll be your new best friend. 

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From your GA4 dashboard, you’ll gain insights into more information than ever before. Your data is at your fingertips, from customer segmentation and churn to conversion rates and spend analysis. 

Staying on top of your data allows you to adjust your strategies and improve your marketing tactics, improving your bottom line. 

Over time, you’ll be able to clearly see which strategies are working and which aren’t.  You can even use Customer Success Software to collect and analyze data on customer behavior, engagement, and satisfaction, and leverage these insights to your strategies and tailor your offerings.

Now that we understand our criteria let’s look at some of the best B2B brand promotion channels. 

The Best Marketing Channels to Promote Your B2B Brand

Here are six digital channels to help promote your B2B brand.

Content Marketing

When promoting your brand to a B2B audience, the first channel you should consider is content marketing.

Content marketing includes many different types of content, like those listed below. 

That’s because content marketing is a hugely diverse marketing channel that can take many forms, from blogging to video production, social media content, audio content, ebooks, email, and more. 

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Content marketing is about producing and sharing helpful content with your target market to attract and keep them. 

By creating exceptional content, you can establish your company as a leader in its field and earn the audience’s confidence. 

Of course, content marketing tools are essential for any content marketer’s success. They include everything from grammar checkers to video and photo editing software. 

Blog posts, case studies, and infographics are popular materials in B2B marketing. However, another popular material within the B2B realm you can create is a white paper, and it’s possible to utilize various content marketing tools to enhance any of them.

For instance, AI copywriting tools can help you produce long-form SEO content five times faster if you can master prompt engineering. 

A SaaS blog can be a great example of a powerful marketing channel for B2B businesses. 

By regularly publishing high-quality, informative content, SaaS businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in the software industry and build a loyal audience of potential customers with a strong relationship willing to trust them with their unique software needs.

One of the main benefits of a SaaS blog is that it allows software businesses to showcase their expertise and provide value to the audience. Companies can demonstrate their authority and build trust with readers by offering helpful tips, insights, and industry news. 

Doing this can be especially important for B2B businesses, as potential customers often seek solutions to complex problems and want to work with a company that deeply understands their industry. By providing valuable content in various formats, including engaging videos created by a video editor, you can effectively position your company as the trusted partner they need.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Like content marketing, SEO is a valuable marketing channel for every business. It goes hand-in-hand with any content marketing strategy. 

To ensure your target audience finds your brand in organic searches, you must optimize your digital assets appropriately. Doing so includes keyword research, technical SEO, and on-page and off-page SEO.

While SEO is crucial and effective, it’s also a long game. An investment in the long-term success of your business rather than a quick win.  

It also requires a lot of skill to apply and optimize well enough to see results.

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It’s not just writing content with a few strategic keywords sprinkled in. You must appeal to Google’s ever-shifting algorithm and build links on and off your site. Not to mention, ensure your B2B content is of high quality and optimize the backend of your site — including titles, meta descriptions, URL slugs, and image alt text.  

Your business name should also be SEO optimized to ensure you can rank for the keywords you want to target. Using a business name generator can help inspire you with SEO-friendly names for your business.

Because this channel is so specialized, entrusting your SEO efforts to an experienced staff member or an SEO agency is the best practice. 

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is incredibly versatile for B2B industries. 

There are so many exciting and effective paths you can take. But regardless of how you decide to dive into social media marketing, some advice is worth following. 

1. Post original content – make sure you’re posting original content on your chosen social media platform without plagiarizing or reposting from others. If you don’t have time or don’t feel like you have the creativity to come up with new content all the time, hire a ghostwriter. 
2. Post consistently – choose a posting schedule and stick to it. Your followers will come to expect your posts at that time on those days – don’t disappoint them. A scheduling tool like Later can help.
3. Share value – give your followers valuable content. Share tips you may have learnt in CMO conferences, free tools that you use in your business, your tech stack, your favorite productivity hacks, your morning routine, etc. 
4. Engage – answer questions, reply to comments, respond to DMs. Also, visit followers’ and peers’ profiles and comment on their posts.

Then you have influencer marketing. 

Some people think influencer marketing is still only designed for teens on TikTok buying makeup. 

But the truth is that plenty of professional content creators for every industry make educational content for businesses. In fact, 94% of marketers think it’s a viable B2B marketing strategy. 

These campaigns look different from the B2C influencer campaigns we’re all familiar with, but that’s a good thing. It means B2B marketers can step outside the box and get creative. They can partner with other companies, individuals, start-ups, or entrepreneurs.

Check out this amazing example from a partnership between Microsoft and NatGeo.

Microsoft wanted to promote women in STEM careers, so they partnered with NatGeo to feature some incredible women, including Paige Drobny, a fisheries biologist, and competitive dog musher. 

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The campaign reached over 91 million people. 

Promoting your company’s brand or products through an influencer marketing strategy entails forming alliances with key thought leaders in your sector. 

You’ll be able to reach a larger audience and earn the trust of your target audience if you take advantage of the influence these specific personalities have. 

Social media management tools are especially helpful for keeping track of your social media campaign insights — including publishing, mentoring, analytics, influencer campaign monitoring, and keeping current on social media trends.

PPC Advertising

With search engine advertising, you only pay if someone clicks on your ad. This ensures you’re not pointlessly throwing money away on expensive marketing ventures that don’t bring you any traffic. 

Google Ads is one of the largest and most well-known PPC channels. 

Through Google Ads, you can bid on specific keywords relevant to your B2B audience. When someone searches, Google reviews the bids and arranges paid ad results on the search engine results page. These appear above the organic results, marked as ads. 

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PPC can be a great way to supplement your SEO. Since SEO takes time, you can immediately generate a return with PPC while the SEO ramps up. Then, once the SEO pays off, you can lower your PPC spend or phase it out entirely. 

Paid ads are a specialty that requires expert knowledge to execute properly. If you decide to explore PPC, we strongly recommend teaming up with a professional or agency with plenty of experience and case studies showing they can do the job.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around almost as long as the internet, but it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Earning $36 for every $1 spent, a marketer would be foolish not to invest in this digital channel. 

With the right automation tool, audience segments, and drip campaigns, B2B marketers can reach their customers at every stage of the sales funnel and nurture them through to conversion. 

While email can be incredibly effective, it’s also amazingly competitive. 

Campaigns fill our inboxes. Welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, onboarding emails – too many to count, let alone open. 

But, with the right subject line and the perfect ratio of text to images, your emails can strike the right chord with your customers and earn that precious open and click-through rate. 

Do that enough, and the result will be some well-deserved, qualified leads.

Nurture those leads through their journey (your sales funnel) with the right emails, and you’ll increase your conversion rates. 

As you guide leads through their journey with well-crafted emails, enhancing conversion rates becomes achievable. Selecting an email marketing platform that aligns with this goal is crucial. Among the options, ActiveCampaign, TinyEmail and Flodesk each bring unique capabilities to the table. To better understand which might serve your needs best, try comparing TinyEmail vs Flodesk for starters, as they offer similar features.

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Just remember: email marketing is a dance. Lead too fast, and you’ll leave your customers behind. Lead too slowly, and they’ll leave you for the next email in their inbox. If you’re already doing email Marketing and are unable to drive the expected ROI, try WhatsApp Marketing which offers a promising message open rate of 98% & a click rate of 45-60%. SMS via either a 10-digit or short code texting platform can also see fantastic results.

Podcasts

Podcasting is a fantastic medium for generating awareness and establishing yourself as an industry leader. 

While there are podcasts on just about everything, such as television shows, theme parks, and more, there are also a lot of business-oriented podcasts designed to educate working professionals worldwide. 

52 million US households listen to business podcasts, and 45% of podcast listeners have an annual household income of over $250,000. 

By starting a podcast, your company can reach members in your preferred B2B audience and establish your brand as a credible source of knowledge. Be sure to establish the goals for your podcast before you start recording.

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Your podcast should sound professional and have a clear intention for each episode. So invest in decent audio equipment and editing software. 

The right microphone, pop filter, and editing software can make the difference between a successful podcast and a launch to the sound of crickets. Alternatively, another great way to promote your brand is organizing events and inviting the industry specialists to have a talk. This way you will create a strong network around your business.

Wrap up

And that’s it!

The marketing channels above represent a fantastic opportunity to reach B2B audiences. 

Don’t forget to evaluate each channel, particularly those relevant to take-profit trader funding, before solidifying your strategy. This approach allows you to allocate funds in your business budget accordingly. Then, monitor your analytics, and adjust, improve, and eliminate strategies as needed. 

Once you find the best strategies for your business, keep optimizing. The sky’s the limit!

Email marketing is a critical component of digital marketing. It has one of the highest ROIs and is one of the simplest strategies to implement. 

However, marketing messages bombard consumers every day. To stand out from the noise, your message must resonate with your audience. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but there are some best practices to help you connect with your target market and lead them through your sales funnel. 

In this blog post, we’ll review six tips to help you create an effective email marketing campaign that converts. 

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a powerful strategy businesses use to email existing and potential customers about their promotions or products. When applied successfully, recipients engage with your company and take action to convert. 

One of the main advantages of email marketing is that people use email every day. In 2022, global email users numbered 4.26 billion, and this figure is set to grow to 4.59 billion users by 2025.

Because of the widespread use of email platforms, e-mail delivery services can be the perfect tool for building customer relationships that’ll help you generate leads and sales. For instance, if you’re a nonprofit organization, Virtuous, a nonprofit email marketing software, can greatly compliment these efforts by streamlining and personalizing your emails, thus optimizing your campaign results.

An email campaign can help to improve the following: 

• Web traffic generation 
• Brand awareness
• Conversions and revenue

Email marketing offers incredible opportunities for optimal ROI. For example, the average email campaign earns $40 for every $1 spent. 

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Email marketing campaigns can also help you upsell and promote special opportunities to new and existing customers. You can also target leads who might be on the fence and tip the scales in favor of purchase.  

Why is email conversion important?

An email conversion occurs when a recipient takes the action you were encouraging in the message.  

Promotional emails for service businesses will encourage visitors to click through to the registration page, but it only counts as a full conversion when they complete the registration.

You can measure conversion rates through a monthly email newsletter containing links to your blog content. You can then track the number of times they read the featured posts or how much time they spend on the post.

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When conversions aren’t directly tied to sales, marketers can find it difficult to see value in them. It can be easy for a business owner to believe that a campaign isn’t successful if it doesn’t immediately generate revenue. However, it’s important to remember that conversions don’t always happen immediately or follow a linear path.

Indirect conversions still have value. When your email leads to other interactions with your website or product, the user is engaging with your brand and you’re staying top of mind. So, when they’re ready to purchase, chances are better that they’ll purchase from you. 

How to use email marketing successfully 

Most small businesses have limited marketing budgets. So, to prevent waste, it’s crucial to avoid marketing tactics that won’t resonate with your target market.

The list we’ve curated for you offers a framework for success that you can elaborate on as you learn more about your audience.

Without further ado, let’s check out our list of six tips for anyone who wants better conversion rates through email marketing. 

Bonus Tip: Check out this list of Marketing Tools to level up your marketing game overall.

1. Build an email list

For an email campaign to be successful, you must have a sufficient email list. An email assistant can help in building the list.

If you want it to be effective, you need to make your sign-up form obvious without interfering with the user experience. A great way to do this is by creating a small window that pops up on the screen as they begin to navigate away from the page. 

The pop-up should be engaging and friendly and ask for their email address, but also be simple for them to close if they choose. 

It’s important to understand how building your email list can affect your website’s SEO. You want to avoid anything that reduces visits or time spent on the site. In other words, don’t annoy people or make them want to leave your site.

We recommend using a double opt-in to build your email list to confirm your subscribers actually want to receive your emails. This will avoid most unsubscribes early in your campaigns and should increase your open rates. A double opt-in can be a verification email the subscriber must reply to that confirms their subscription.

Image provided by Erin Wigginton

It’s also a good idea to share your emails via social media and include social share buttons to allow your subscribers to send them to friends.

Another option is to provide an ebook, coupon, etc., in exchange for subscribing to your mailing list. For example, AppSumo offers 75 business ideas that don’t require coding knowledge or experience in exchange for your email address. 

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It’s equally important to only ask visitors for necessary information, so signing up is quick and easy. Remember, you can always ask for more details later. In fact, studies show that asking for too much information creates a barrier and lowers conversion rates. Also, don’t forget to make your email list robust by using an email verifier and taking other necessary steps.

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2. Email marketing design 

Any successful email marketing campaign requires a good email design. Emails with poor design reflect poorly on you, which can put readers off. 

You can’t deny that emails with images look better, but be aware that some recipients disable them. If people can’t see your images, your email still needs to work. As a general rule, the best emails have more text than images. 

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Images shouldn’t contain any hidden information. Additionally, you should keep people with disabilities in mind and remember to use alt tags to explain and describe images so that users know what they’re supposed to see.

If you need help designing the layout of your emails, you can always use free email templates and tools like Canva. Or, if you want to go the extra mile, hire a professional designer or freelance writer. 

If you want an original style, use the templates as inspiration or ask a designer to help you create something truly unique. 

Keep in mind that most people read emails on their mobile devices. So make sure your mobile forms and other clickable elements look and function flawlessly on phones. 

Also, make sure your emails are responsive, so they’ll also look fantastic on desktops and tablets if readers decide to check them out at work or while taking a break at home. 

3. Create an inviting welcome email

When people subscribe to email lists, they expect to receive a welcome email. It should confirm their subscription, welcome them, thank them, and tell them what to expect from future emails. 

Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82% and click-through rates of over 26%. With stats like that, making that first email count is essential. 

Here are some ideas to add value to your welcome email.

• A strong subject line and preheader – remember, no one will read your email if your subject line doesn’t hook them first. 
• Relevant, valuable content recommendations – include suggestions for other content from your website or partner sites relevant to your customers.
• Money-saving discounts or offers – everyone appreciates saving money, and this can be a great way to welcome new customers and get them shopping
• An interactive email signature – including an email signature with key details like your name, title, company logo, and contact information follows best practices and adds a professional touch to your welcome email.

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This example from Casper is simple and straightforward. It stays on point with a little humor at the end, keeping the message casual and clear. Thanks to these tactics, the reader knows what to expect and is enticed to click the call-to-action button to learn more. 

If you want your email campaign to reach a multilingual audience, you can also translate emails to overcome language barriers.

4. Remember to follow up

Once you’ve sent that first welcome message, sending a follow-up email is crucial. 

Ideally, you should send a follow-up email within 24 hours. And most marketing experts say the value deteriorates after 48 hours, so immediate contact is imperative for optimal results.

Using an email marketing platform that tracks the prospect’s activity is extremely helpful. You’ll want to monitor your email open rates and click-through rates. 

These analytics will help you determine which campaigns are successful and which aren’t. Then, you can A/B test different subject lines, preheaders, and other variables to optimize as much as possible. 

Automating your email sequences to keep your customer loyalty and engagement high is also a good idea. Automation also simplifies the process and reduces the repetitive work you and your team are responsible for. We’ll get into greater detail regarding automation in a bit. 

5. Have clear calls to action

One common feature among the best marketing email campaigns is clear calls to action. 

A call to action, or CTA, is a written directive in marketing. It encourages visitors to act on a website. Among different CTA types are text hyperlinks, push buttons, or plain text.

However, buttons perform better than hyperlinked text. Statistics show that CTA buttons increased click-throughs by 28%.

This welcome email from Michael’s is a perfect example of how multiple CTA buttons can coexist in one message. The reader gets a 20% off coupon and is simultaneously invited to choose their preferences and browse sale items online. 

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CTA texts like “buy now” or “don’t miss your chance” are classic examples of CTAs that catch the eye. However, you can also get creative, like ClickUp did with their CTA below. Instead of using the standard “Subscribe Now,” they switched things up with “Get More Time.” 

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Calls to action are often the difference between success and failure for a marketing campaign. So don’t let yours be an afterthought. 

6. Automate it

Automation can bring images of robots and conveyor belts to mind, but automating your email marketing is a smart move. And it shouldn’t mean less personalization for your subscribers.  

In fact, when you segment your email list properly, you can increase your email revenue by up to 760%. Segmenting improves personalization and relevancy, and ‌automation can help you accomplish it. 

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A day or two after you send your welcome email, use your email marketing platform to analyze which parts of the email your subscriber has interacted with. Then, according to their choices, you can assign tags or place them into segments that align with their interests. That way, you can personalize and target specific messages for them in the future. You can take advantage of sales lead tools to identify and prioritize the most engaged prospects, ensuring that your personalized messages reach those most likely to convert.

With marketing automation, you can guarantee your campaigns will arrive at the right time and in the right inboxes. Anything less risks the success of your marketing efforts. 

By scheduling emails in advance, you prevent lapses in communication and stay top of mind. In addition, nurturing sequences guide your prospects through your sales funnel and towards conversion naturally. 

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Pro Tip: You can also use tools like Breadcrumbs Lead Scoring to level up your process and stay ahead of your competitors. 

Note: No matter which email marketing tool (Constant Contact, ConvertKit, etc.) you choose, make sure it works well with your email service provider (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.).

Your next email marketing campaign

Email marketing is still going strong, and there’s no sign of it slowing down any time soon. Most of us check email on our phones up to 20 times a day. 

That’s great news if you’re an email marketer. Use your list to grow brand awareness, strengthen customer loyalty, and drive conversions. 

Remember, your email subscribers are individuals who want personalization and relevancy. With the six tips we’ve shared, you can develop a winning combination for your next email marketing campaign in no time. 

To your success!