EMAIL MARKETING IN B2B » Business To Business » Business-To- Business-Electronic Commerce: B2B electronic-mail marketing is among the most powerful techniques that can be employed for creating business leads and customer relation and for generating sales in Business-To-Business markets. In comparison with other types of digital marketing, like social networks and contextual advertising, email has risen not in popularity and still provides a very high ROI if used properly. Statistical research shows that the average revenue generated for each dollar spent in email marketing is $42.
However, email marketing in industries but especially B2B email marketing is not as easy as it is made out to be. CEOs, managers, and other business leaders are deluged with e-mail messages and sometimes your messages can go unnoticed for days. If you want your message to be heard and attended you must employ specific effective strategies and techniques that attract the attention of the target audience and gain its trust as well as prompt it for action.
If you want to get the greatest result from your business to business email marketing in this article, let me share the seven important strategies that you must keep in your mind.
B2B Email Marketing : Don’t Mail to Your Entire List, Instead Segment it for Maximum Relevance
Unfortunately, it is impossible to please everyone with a single regular company email with a generic message. Individuals and organizations who engage in commerce and purchasing have different requirements, issues, and wants. When you send the same corporate message to all your subscribers, you not only flood your audiences with non-relevant content, but you also get low open and click-thru rates for your emails as well as high bounce rates and subsequent unsubscribe rates.
Why segmentation is important in business to business marketing?
Segmentation makes it possible to sort your email list according to category depending on the industry, size of the company, title of the person or their behavior patterns/engagement levels. This makes your messaging more relevant to each recipient because it provides a way of segmenting your mail list.
For example, a CEO of a startup may require general information on strategy while a mid-level manager might want practical information on how to make changes to current management. If you make specific communications targeted to each segment then you can pre-empt what they are interested in and enhance the prospects of response.
How to segment B2B Email Marketing list
- Demographic Information: To reach out to the members match according to the type of job, the industry, or geographical area they belong. This assists in developing content that is unique to the industry, or the geography of the target market.
- Behavior-Based: Examples include the Web pages the user visits, the products viewed, or previous email communications. One should use this data to develop behavior-based email marketing strategies.
- Lead Stage: Pare leads as cold, warm, and hot. Use their position in the sales funnel to send out content that corresponds to it. Cold leads maybe getting a few basic content emails while warm leads could be getting product demos.
- Company Size: Depending on who your target audience is, their requirements may be diverse from those of a big company hence modifying your message keeps you relevant.
Tools to Aid Segmentation
The majority of email marketing tools, for example, Mailchimp, Hubspot, or ActiveCampaign, have robust capabilities to segment contacts. There are active/pseudo user lists where you can update your segments according to users’ activity, so your segments are always relevant.
B2B Email Marketing : Remember That Subject Line Makes or Marcs the Email – Further How to Increase Open Rates
The subject line is the first text that people come across each time you send them an email. Sometimes it’s hard to make your email stand out in a sea of them, and the subject line can be the only thing between the success and the delete button.
B2B Subject Line Best Practices
- Keep it Short and Clear: There is simply no room for an organization in B2B to spend its time on unimportant and less desperate projects. As seen, it is advisable for one to keep it short and simple to the main issue in the subject line. It should be 6-10 words long and not generic.
- Highlight the Value Proposition: There must also be a clear understanding of what the recipient is going to gain when he opens the lookout for specific responses. Assuming an empathic approach, concentrate on presenting the audience with responses to their issues or desires. For instance, while “Five Strategies to Cut Operational Expenses by Thirty percent” is way more engaging than “New Newsletter!!!!”
- Use Numbers or Data: Numbers are usually attractive and when statistics, percents, or other figures are used they seem more authoritative. For instance ‘’ How We Generated 150% More B2B Leads in 6 Months.’’
- Create a Sense of Urgency: Some samples of such subject lines include those, which convey the sense of time limitation or the availability of the special offer. For example, “Limited-Time Offer: Such heading as “Get a Free Consultation” calls for early attention.
- Avoid Spammy Language: Some words such as ‘free,’ ‘guaranteed,’ or the use of multiple! in the text may ‘turn on’ the spam detector. However, it is important to use only plain and professional language with benefits in the text of the proposal.
A/B Testing Subject Lines
However, to boost the subject line, you need to apply A/B testing for your messages. Take your email list, divide it in two and try out two variations of the subject line to determine which will produce a higher response. In the long run, you will be able to learn what kind of subject lines matter a lot to the users and improve your strategy.
B2B Email Marketing : How to Pursue Those Really Special Contacts with Your Typed Letters
Customization is considered to play an important role in business-to-business email marketing. Today’s buyers are sophisticated and were therefore likely to engage with and take action on highly targeted relevant content receives.
Levels of Personalization
- Basic Personalization: I am sure that at the very least you’ll address the recipient by their name. Incorporating his/her name in subject or salutation helps him/her realize that it is not just another email message that they receive from various unknown sources.
- Advanced Personalization: Go beyond just using names. Include features that offer tailor-made solutions according to the activity of the user and or the past purchase, or specifically about the difficulty of the field of operation. In such a case, if the recipient has recently downloaded a white paper on a certain subject, then the next thing that could be of relevance to him is case studies or solutions.
- Dynamic Content: Employ dynamic fields in your emails where you want to personalize an entire chunk of text in your email body. For instance, while prefixing the content with some general information, based on the recipient’s industry or their position, you might replace entire blocks of content.
Tools for Personalization
Almost all the available email marketing services provide tools like merge tags whereby you can insert data from your CRM for personalization. When managed well, this data will enable you to provide your audience with content that is most likely to interest them.
B2B Email Marketing : Value, Educational Content Predominant
In the B2B environment, people making decisions may need useful information and knowledge that can assist them in addressing a particular business issue. This is unlike B2C marketing where inspirational messages may be effective; B2B email content should primarily provide informative and solutions-driven content.
Kinds of Valuable Content One Should Post
- Case Studies: Present genuine case studies where your products or services have helped another company to find a solution to a particular challenge. Case histories give decision-makers evidence that the system will work for them and give insight into how it can be adapted for their needs.
- White Papers and Reports: Sharing various types of materials such as white papers, industry reports, or ebooks can make your product stand out and offer more than just selling a product.
- How-To Guides: Teaching and instructional content can show how useful your product or service is, and at the same time, inform your audience. For example, a guide on “How to Streamline Supply Chain Operations” may be very useful for logistics-related B2B businesses.
- Webinars and Video Content: Lease use your email to advertise educational webinars, tutorials, or any other video. Video is a favored source of information for many B2B specialists, and webinars enable you to explore niche issues with your audience.
Email Content Length
Contrary to a few ideas that longer content is better for B2B email marketing, it is not true. Many business professional readers will not have time to read lengthy articles, so make the content short and sweet with an option to click through for more data. This is especially important if the link you’re providing leads to a white paper or report – a short summary or the main conclusions will help grab the attention of those scrolling through the list.
B2B Email Marketing : Learn How to Set Up Your Email Marketing to Keep Your Audience Interested
In B2B relations, perfect automation is a key to success in the world of email marketing. Since one is able to insert drip campaigns, trigger-based, and customized workflows you are able to keep touching base with your prospects as well as customers at every level of the prospect funnel without having to schedule individual mail at each stage.
Advantages of Using Email Automation in B2B
- Nurture Leads: Another pro demonstrates that the same automation tools can also nourish the leads by providing them with the content they need at any stage in their buyer’s journey. For instance, if a client downloads a white paper, an automatic email may be sent to his inbox with related content.
- Increase Efficiency: This means that you are able to reach hundreds if not thousands of contacts at any one time and free up more time for other important tasks.
- Trigger Emails Based on Behavior: In addition, define actions to send emails depending on them, such as visiting a pricing page or abandoning the shopping cart. This helps to deliver highly relevant content in the very moment when your prospect is most responsive.
Some of the Automated B2B workflows include:
- Welcome Series: A series of messages provided to individuals who subscribe to your organization’s list or other potential consumers.
- Lead Nurturing Series: A campaign of messaging about specific products or services by periodically delivering information and other supports or leads to clients who meet certain criteria or are interested in this or that topic.
- Re-Engagement Campaign: Notification mails sent to mute subscribers to regain their attention with fresh offers or new changes.
Almost all the email marketing tools like, HubSpot, Active Campaign, and Mailchimp have sophisticated automation capabilities. These tools enable the design and tracking of the workflow in order to optimise your campaigns to result in success.
B2B Email Marketing : Mobile Device Optimization of Your Emails
Coupled with the modern use of mobile devices in the marketplace, responsiveness of your emails is a requirement. A Litmus study reveals 42% of B2B emails are opened on a mobile device – which poses a dangerous threat to any email that is not mobile responsive.
Note: All referenced guidelines were taken from the article “Best Practices for Mobile Optimization” by Brad McCoy and published at http://www.econsultancy.com at 2008.
- Responsive Design: Make sure that your emails embedded with flexibility, in a way that they can easily adapt to any other screen size. This makes it easy when you are using your Gmails on your Smartphones and tablets or any other portable device.
- Use Single Column Layouts: Multi-column layouts look comparatively cluttered and hard to scan when you try and shove them onto a smartphone or tablet. Use a minimalist single column layout which are convenient to browse on a portable device.
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Optimize Images**: You may have large images that can take quite a while to load on mobile, which means that the audience will lose patience. Reduce image size using Ken Burns effect, and always add text description for when images failed to load.
- Clickable CTA Buttons: Ensure that your calls-to-action hang around allow to be clicked on the small screen. Such options as buttons should have an appropriate size to perform a tap action; they must include enough padding to minimize chances of a click.
Preview Before Sending
A majority of the email marketing platforms have a provision whereby you can view your email as it will appear in the devices before actually sending it. New design and copy should be checked in mobile preview in order to review how it looks and appears in mail client.
B2B Email Marketing : Use the Measuring Tools and Keep Adjusting Results
Knowing the success rate of your emailed messages is crucial when it comes to the survival of your B2B Marketing Firm. Measuring is worthless if you don’t know what you’re assessing: time is wasted on ineffective processes and customer satisfaction decreases.
Key email marketing KPI to track
- Open Rate: Such a report indicates how many people are actually opening your emails. This means that the content of your message is not that interesting or your subscribers are not active enough.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric points out the number of users clicked on the links or call-to-action buttons found in your email. If CTR is low then it might be possible that the content of email is not at all suitable, or link stands out poorly, or your email is poorly designed.
- Conversion Rate: This is the extent of the people who made a desired action, as it could be a form completion, a demonstration request, or purchase, among others, once they have clicked the link in your email. It is an important working index to measure the return on investments.
- Bounce Rate: The bounce rate defines how many of your emails never got to the recipients. A high bounce rate can tell you that your list has to be cleaned or that something about the emails that you are sending needs to be changed.
- Unsubscribe Rate: It is normal to see a high rate of people unsubscribe from the list, however, it’s also a signal that your emails are not relevant or not sent with the right frequency or at the wrong time.
Continuous Optimization
Make an analysis of your results after every campaign you have done and let the results be of help to subsequent emails. Try and experiment with subject lines, call to actions, and design of the emails so that you can always be evolving in the best way possible.
B2B Email Marketing : Conclusion :
This post has sought to explain why B2B email marketing is very useful as a channel that, when deployed optimally, can greatly improve lead nurturing, engagement, and conversions. Hence, by using seven essential practices of email marketing such as division of its target audience, proper selection of its subject line, the correspondence of its content with its receivers, the values its emphasizes, the workflow automation, its mobile optimization, and the measurement of its achievements — you may enhance its effectiveness.
When you’re sending e-mails to other businesses, it’s important not just the quantity of e-mails you’re sending, but the quality of those messages. That is why remaining committed to these strategies will not only lead to even higher open and click-through rates, but, more importantly, will create better relationships between your business and its prospects and clients which, in the long run, means success for the given organisation.