There was a time when building an email list was the key to financial success, and that remains especially true for e-commerce and consumer-based businesses today. Having a large email list allows you to consistently keep your offerings in front of your customers.

One person I greatly admire in the internet marketing space is Connie Regan Green. I have known her for nearly 15 years, and she authored a book titled “Huge Profits With a Tiny List.” Her main argument is that if you have the right people on your list—primarily buyers rather than casual browsers—you can spend less time managing the list and more time engaging with those who truly want what you sell.

I have been involved in email marketing for years, and it has often been a challenge for me. Encouraging people to join a list, or attempting to persuade or trick them into doing so, can be exhausting and often unproductive. Connie's insights have always resonated with me.

Email is incredibly important for any business, but managing a list can feel like a full-time job. It requires a focus on validation and deliverability, as well as creating content that people actually want to receive, while keeping it fresh and engaging.

It would seem that over the last few years, with the advent of artificial intelligence, emailing is actually getting harder. Tools are adding features, AI, and integrating CRM with email marketing, but that does not and will not make it any easier, just more data to capture, process, and upkeep.

What's New in Email Marketing

Spam and spoofing are real problems. People make money with email. Some are legit, and some are nefarious. Both are problematic with email inboxes being flooded with junk, spam, and overuse.

• Inbox providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Apple) now enforce stricter authentication requirements (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), spam-compliance thresholds, visible unsubscribe links, and domain reputation, so more messages are filtered or routed to Promotions/Other by default.

Those new tools make getting into inboxes much harder these days.

• Benchmarks show inbox placement has dipped as providers tighten filters; even legitimate senders see more mail go to spam or secondary tabs if engagement is weak.

Laws have popped up from GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to CCPA and CPRA (California Consumer Privacy Act & California Privacy Rights Act).

• Those laws push toward explicit consent, easy opt-outs, and faster deletion, which shrinks lists faster and makes aggressive acquisition tactics risky and expensive.

AI is also changing the game when it comes to writing and receiving emails.

• AI both filters more intelligently and rewrites previews, which can change how your message is interpreted and clicked, especially if it’s image-heavy or templated.

All of that is leading to slower list growth and faster list shrinkage. You have to treat first‑party data and consent mechanisms as core assets, not afterthoughts.

Overcoming Adversity

I believe that list management is best conducted outside the email program. I tried to use my CRM to manage both contacts and people who were previously on my email list, and I realized it was a mistake.

I cleaned my CRM list to include only business-related contacts, and then I cleaned out my contacts (IOS) to include only the people I need to call or text regularly, including personal and family contacts. That made both programs less cluttered and functional.

Then I thought I could use Nimble to broadcast the emails I used to send with ActiveCampaign, and I imported my cleared email list from AC into Nimble.

The problem is that Nimble uses my domain (B2bInteractiveMarketing.com) for IMAP and SMTP (for receiving and sending emails). My hosting ISP is like most and limits outgoing email to 100 at a time. That killed sending 600+ emails.

I had to find a new email program to send from. And I removed the email list and saved it in an Excel spreadsheet. Then I exported the people I wanted to email from my CRM so they could get my weekly articles. Each of those lists has a tag of ‘Clients', ‘Prospects' (from Nimble), and ‘Leads' (from the email list). Each of those can be filtered in 3 tabs on the spreadsheet.

That will be imported into the new email program (still evaluating options), and I can email all of them or just a segment that I see fit.

Best Practices

Verification

Verification of email address deliverability is a must. I have verified the email list exported from AC with KickBox (very reasonably priced), which helped me remove undeliverables. I made the mistake of importing that list into Nimble, which had me re-verify the entire list (more expensive). Now that trimmed list has been exported to the spreadsheet. Once imported to the new email program, they may need to be verified again.

That being said, verification is the new standard you must follow if you want to maintain high deliverability and avoid being kicked off any email platform.

Maintenance

You want to be diligent about identifying bounced emails and unsubscribes. People unsubscribing from a list sent by your CRM could be deadly, preventing even legitimate emails from reaching them. People on your broadcast list can simply be deleted when they unsubscribe or bounce. People in your CRM are another story.

If a client or prospect bounces, you will want to reach out and find out why. It could be a glitch, that they are using a different email, or even that they have changed companies. That list in your CRM should be updated so you can stay in touch even if they don't want to be on your broadcast list.

Personalization & Consistency

Personalization goes beyond just adding someone's first name to the email (data field).

B2B buyers expect tailored, insight-rich messages, not blasts. Generic email now underperforms unless you have strong segmentation and deliver content that informs and educates and avoids selling.

If someone is a customer, they may have different interests than prospects and leads. You may want to create multiple versions of an email, each with a different teaser message geared toward one of the two (or even three) groups. With most systems, it's not hard to duplicate, tweak, and send multiple versions of an email (which could all lead to the same blog post).

Consistency is key to improving open rates and reducing unsubscribe rates. Also, brevity of the teaser email text (easy to read, digest, and act on) is what makes your email more attractive in a person's cluttered inbox.

Best practice is to send an email at least once a week (minimum) to keep people interested, and to send it at the same time on the same day each week. A second email for special events or webinars is best sent at least 2 days after your main content email.

Closing Thought

Connie was right about the small list (especially when it comes to B2b). You don't need a bunch of emails to be successful, just ones from people who know you and are really interested in what you can do to help them solve problems and grow their businesses.

I believe that a CRM is a great tool for tracking and initiating interactions via email. That's better for one-on-one, personalized messages that are sent from your own domain.

Email broadcasts and automations are a powerful tool in your arsenal, but they require more than the set-it-and-forget-it approach we could get away with not too long ago.

The most important factor in both of them working to produce a sale is maintaining a clean, up-to-date list while respecting the recipient's inbox. I suggest that when you add anyone to a broadcast list, you send them an email informing them of such, and give them a chance to unsubscribe on the spot. It's much more effective and personalized than relying on double-opt-in protocols that often end up in spam or promotions and kill the chance of connection before it even starts.

Let me just say that if you got here via an email or social post we created, it's a clear example of why message distribution works, and we can help make it work for your business as well!

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.