If you want to run a successful B2B email campaign, it goes without saying that you’ll need subscribers. Having email addresses is a key part of sharing your content. Everyone wants your email, and you want the email of every potential lead.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and more expensive than ever to acquire the email of a potential lead. Even though there are a lot of companies cluttering up the marketing space, there are still opportunities for you to capture leads and generate results through online marketing. These opportunities that are overlooked because the industry likes to chase the next big thing rather than embracing strategies that are underrated, but effective.

If you want to know how to build an email list for your B2B company, read on for four strategies that don't just add your content into the clutter.

1. Share Value & Resources Through Quora Answers

The question-and-answer site Quora spent the last few years collecting insights and information that could eventually fill in gaps. After growing to have more than 190 million monthly users, the app raised $85 million from investors, pushing its valuation to nearly $2 billion.

But that’s not the only interesting thing about Quora—the amount of traffic the site is getting every single day from Google is growing. In fact, people are going directly from Google to Quora to find answers to their questions.

For B2B marketers, Quora offers a great opportunity to inject your brand and knowledge into the conversation and drive real results for your business. Just to give you an idea of the potential reach: The B2B Lead Generation topic has more than 1.5K followers subscribed to receive updates and notifications when new answers are published.

Quora is filled with questions that range from simple definitions to complex comparisons or insider information. To identify questions that are relevant to you, conduct a search in the Quora search bar. As you review the results, look for questions where you know you can deliver value. This is an important point because too many people make the mistake of going into these conversations solely trying to sell rather than giving insightful, helpful answers.

When you share your content and expertise in these forums, you’ll drive website visitors, and content downloads. This ultimately allows you to build your email list with quality leads who want your content and have the types of challenges that you can provide and answer or solution to.

2. Participate & Engage in Industry Forums

No matter your industry, there’s probably a niche community (or two, or many) where your target audience hangs out.

People may think forums are dead, but in reality, they’re very much alive. Thousands of people from different industries visit online communities every day to have conversations with their peers, whether it’s about health care or marketing.

You can find these communities by conducting a search on Google, or even Quora. Once you’ve discovered communities relevant to your audience and your product/service, you can start distributing content that these communities will appreciate. You may be able to distribute this content using paid media efforts, or you can always place yourself in the community as a member.

By becoming an active member in industry forums, you will place yourself as a knowledgeable expert in your industry. These forums can help you drive website visitors and content downloads and you could find connections with other people in your industry who could help you in the future. Maybe there is a prominent industry thought leader that you could interview and write a blog about (then have them share the blog with their followers, too). This will help you grow your email list with quality leads and contacts that want to hear from you.

3. Utilize Marketing Opportunities on LinkedIn

LinkedIn isn’t just a website for uploading your CV and hoping to get a job. The site can be used as a channel to build and nurture professional relationships. It can also be used as a marketing channel for B2B brands looking to connect with their target audience through what is still considered the preferred social network for business.

LinkedIn offers a handful or paid media efforts that brands can leverage to get their story in front of their target audience:

• Display advertising
• Dynamic advertising
• Native advertising
• PPC advertising
• Sponsored InMail

HubSpot found that the conversion rate from LinkedIn ads is quite impressive—check it out. LinkedIn also launched their LinkedIn Forms—a way to capture emails and leads without any landing pages. While these are great tactics for generating B2B leads, paid media efforts are not the end all, be all for LinkedIn marketing.

One of the most powerful elements of LinkedIn is the social aspect: the connections you’ve made and the relationships you have with those people. By sharing your content via posts and writing articles, you can not only reach your audience, but also expand it when your connections share your content.

The more people you’re connected to on LinkedIn, the better the chance that your content will reach people outside of your network. You can also use your current connections as a way to gain new connections on LinkedIn—but that’s not to say you should go out and just start adding everyone on LinkedIn!

Whether you decide to do paid advertising on LinkedIn, or just share your content on your own LinkedIn page, you can work to build a healthy email list. Also, if you have a valuable content offer, see if any of your LinkedIn connections would be able to share your post for you. This way more people are able to see the post (your connections’ connections) and you don’t have to pay to use LinkedIn’s ads. By having others share your content you will have a much further reach, and you will see your email list continue to grow.

4. Include a Call-to-Action in Your Email Signature

This is pretty straightforward: Use your email signature for content promotion.

Don’t be shy. Update your email signature to include a simple call-to-action (CTA) telling people to download a guide, sign up for a webinar or subscribe to your newsletter. As you’re nurturing a relationship with a potential lead, you might send them an email with a resource, some new research or a proposal. If they like it, they may forward your email to other people in their network or company to review. As your email is passed along, a signature that drives people to your content is an easy opportunity to keep building your list.

This tactic can be extremely beneficial for people within your business who might email back and forth with prospects who may not be receiving marketing emails (i.e. sales, upper level management). Using a simple CTA is a simple way to gain contacts (and isn’t time-consuming).

While doing these tasks might seem like a lot of work, the work is worth the reward. You’ll build your email list with contacts that want to hear from you and won’t unsubscribe or mark you as spam!

Are there other list building techniques that you use at your B2B company? Share them below in the comments!