by Alisa Cromer, publisher, NPB

When NichePublisher.biz got started in 2023, we had a small  email list,  not be enough to quickly build the minimum of 10,000 B2B emails needed to power its newsletter-first model.

The strategy that succeeded at scale was to use WIZA to find emails for publishers found on LinkedIn Sales Navigator. 

This works best when the job titles and categories that LinkeIn use are an exact match. In this case, it was not, but still effective.

You can also use  job title-based searches to build contact lists for B2C defined by areas  and/or interests in some categories.

Alwasy run the lists through a list cleaner such Neverbounce, a visual check for relevance, and send warm up with an intro letter through forgiving ESP like Mailchimp for the first send. Finally, don’t send outside the U.S and never, ever violate CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which mostly requires unsubscribe buttons.

Having said that: Here’s how to do it:

Setting Up a Sales Navigator Search Strategy

The first step is to conduct a search using filters. Start with “lead filters” at the top of  Sales Navigator.  Clicking on filters opens all the options.

Possible searches include company size, location, and job title.  The industry is simply typed into the search box.

This simple strategy is what live chat support at WIZA recommended. Payments are credit-based, and since support is staffed by salespeople, they want customers to find more of their target audience so they will buy more credits.

Critical Geography Considerations

One very important filter is geography. Publishers will always select a geographical option, because even if they want to go as wide as possible, and do not have a geographical niche, they need to eliminate Canada and Europe from the results. These countries have severe penalties for email. The United States has CAN-SPAM laws, but as long as those are followed, there is no legal risk.

The Power of Self-Reported Data

One of the best things about LinkedIn and Sales Navigator is that people are self-reporting. So this information is typically completely up to date, including their job title and workplace.  However, it’s not all about B2B.

For example, a search for St. Petersburg, Fl shows 240,000 people in the city who are on LinkedIn, while drilling down into specific interests gets a closer match. For example, searching for “yoga instructors” in St. Petersburg yielded 322 results. Chefs or restaurant owners generate around 1,000 results. If you are a regional publication, if you can align the persona, you may capture thousands of emails with a strategic approach.

WIZA allows publishers to export 2,500, and that is also the maximum number of credits available per month on  their plans.  Best practice is to segment at 2500 or fewer and visually scan the results before exporting, which the WIZA browser extension. With each export, WIZA will match most of the emails for the search results and save them in its dashboard.

Developing a Strategy

With a number as large as 10,000 or more, NPB needed a strategy that would pull less than 2400 each time. Otherwise, we would export a random 2400 out of the total number.

The strategy – recommended by WIZA – in this case was to pull the lists state by state.  All 50 states went into a spreadsheet to track the programs, along with some of the largest cities in the largest states—LA, San Francisco, New York City, and Miami – where there were more than 2500 in the niche publishing community.

Now that the list is structured, the strategy calls for running the cities first. Publishers don’t pay for duplications, so there was no worry about paying for Miami twice when pulling Florida.

Expanding Categories

After the geographic strategy, look for other ways to search at scale. For us at NPB, it was pet magazines and Catholic newspapers. A magazine for fitness professionals might pull yoga instructors, personal trainers, and any other categories. A city magazine might look for high-end professionals and people in the arts, entertainment, and food industries.

Once the strategy is done and it’s all in a spreadsheet, it can be turned over to a virtual assistant offshore to run the lists.

Make sure they select emails only, not both emails and phone numbers, which can be expensive, unless the prospects are also advertisers.

Instructions should also include downloading only the valid emails.

Advanced Search Techniques

On Sales Navigator, publishers can also find their first connections, which can be a very good “warm” list to match.  Second connections are also available,  but keep in mind that those numbers can get too large to be useful.

Other options: Company Size Strategy

Under company headcount, if publishers put in the smaller companies, they are more likely to reach an owner or somebody who is going to convert. One reason is that it’s hard to find the right person in a big company, but also, they’re much more likely to have a bot screen their email openings.

The One-by-One Approach

When publishers have used WIZA for bulk downloads,  or are looking for audience members very important to them – for example, association members, a virtual assistant can also use WIZA to find emails one by one.

When using a virtual assistant on Upwork, publishers have to be very literal and specific with instructions. Set that spreadsheet up with all the information needed and tell them what to do.

Cleaning the Lists

Once publishers have this data, it’s not enough. Clean all lists using a tool called NeverBounce. It will keep enough hard bounces off of lists enough so publishers can feel good about emailing to them.

Put that list, as clean as possible, into a very forgiving ESP, which is MailChimp. MailChimp doesn’t have a good IP score, but it is good for mailing to a cold list for about six months. Then the openers can be moved over to an ESP with a higher deliverability factor.

ESP Considerations

Does the IP of the email provider affect delivery? Yes. After domain reputation and engagement factors, IP reputation is the third factor.

The Email Tool Tester used to provide ratings on deliverability, but no longer considers them as valid. ActiveCampaign  , for example, got a four out of five rating, while MailChimp was down at the bottom with three.

Klaviyo had the best deliverability score, and Substack also scores well. Afterall, what’s the point of increasing all these emails if they’re not actually making it to end users?

Do not change ESPs lightly. It takes a lot of work, but if publishers are considering it, these are the things to know. I

Conclusions

These steps show most types of niche publishers how to find emails on WIZA, clean the lists, and make choices about their ESP. The first step is to set a goal. How many opt-ins does your media want to achieve in the next year?