Nathan May built a $1M ARR business with a private, invite-only newsletter for just a few hundred key decision-makers. Instead of mass marketing, he manually invited high-value targets via LinkedIn, using social proof (mentioning their peers) to build trust and generate high-ticket sales.
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During a major launch, the creator continued sending her regular story-driven newsletter. By weaving in authentic stories related to the launch theme and a subtle CTA, these emails generated over $300,000, proving that connection-focused content can outperform hard sales pitches.
Your business grows not by the size of your email list, but by the number of 'whales'—customers who buy high-ticket items and purchase often. Focus all marketing efforts, from lead magnets to ads, on attracting and identifying these individuals, as this is the fastest path to growth.
The world of Fortune 500 executives is a small, interconnected community. Rather than casting a wide marketing net, focus all energy on securing one key 'lighthouse' customer. Over-deliver value for them, even if the deal isn't profitable. Their endorsement and introductions to peers are more effective than any marketing channel.
B2B marketers typically target corporate emails, which are transient. LinkedIn newsletters are often sent to a user's personal, long-term email address associated with their account. This provides a durable and direct line of communication to a highly-guarded inbox that is difficult to access through other means.
Effective marketing favors deep targeting over generic email lists. For a niche book, the author scraped 14,000 emails of relevant university faculty for a personalized outreach campaign. This thoughtful, scaled approach generated overwhelmingly positive responses, proving its superiority to mass marketing.
To sell to risk-averse CFOs without many customer logos, Briq built credibility by partnering with financial associations in their target industry. This strategy provided the necessary social proof and trust verification needed to close early deals with skeptical buyers.
Leveraging his existing authority on LinkedIn, Tom Alder promoted his yet-to-be-released newsletter and built a 5,000-person waitlist. This strategy capitalized on the excitement of a launch, converting his social media following into an email audience before writing a single issue.
Unlike Facebook's algorithm, which thrives on broad audiences, LinkedIn's requires precision. Success comes from using small, hyper-targeted audiences, often built from custom-uploaded company lists, to ensure every dollar reaches the exact target profile.
B2B SaaS companies selling to specific verticals (like car dealerships) should stop broadcasting on all channels. Instead, they must focus on LinkedIn, creating native content as if for TikTok and then using targeted ads to amplify winning posts to their ideal customer profile.
An author's direct mail success relies on a list she has personally built and maintained for over a decade. This "Dream 100" approach of slow, deliberate list curation ensures accuracy and relevance, yielding far better results than blasting a large, impersonal, purchased list.
