According to Hubspot, 86% of business people prefer to receive communications via email over other channels. What does this tell us? It tells us that email is still a uniquely important marketing channel for all B2B businesses.
Let’s say you already have a marketing plan in place, and you know your goals and target audience. The next question should be, “how are we going to communicate this amazing strategy to our target audience? Is there a way for us to send out marketing communications to users who might be interested in our products or services?”
This is where email marketing can come in.
You should be aware that not all your customers will be active on social media and they might not even read your content, but almost all of them will regularly check their emails. For B2B businesses, email is still one of the most powerful and effective marketing channels for promoting your products and services. The key is understanding how to develop your B2B email marketing strategy in line with your target audience's behaviour.
But first, let’s go over a few of the basics.
Business to business marketing (B2B) involves promoting goods and services to other companies, rather than B2C is doing the same but directly to the consumer. Within B2B marketing, the sales process is different in that it tends to be a lengthier sales cycle with other decision-makers to consider. To read more on B2B marketing, head over to our handy resources guide, ‘What Is B2B Marketing?’
Now that we’ve gone over the B2B basics, here are some statistics which demonstrate the importance of email marketing:
According to QuickSprout, your email subscribers are 3x more likely to share your content on their social media platforms
According to Campaign Monitor, you will likely receive 6x more click-through's via an email campaign than a tweet
For every dollar spent on email marketing, on average it generates a $44 return on investment – Campaign Monitor
B2C are similar in some respects, they are not the same in that users behave differently when browsing your website or content.
B2C customers tend to be less informed about their eventual purchase; they can be more receptive to impulse buys. However, on the other hand, B2B customers tend to know what they want from the start and make their purchasing decisions based on rational thinking, what they need quality and price ratio.
Knowing how your customers behave will also help you segment and group your audiences for more effective email marketing campaigns, tailored to the right group or audience.
Now that you have your audiences grouped correctly, you should now be considering the visual elements of your email. The content has to be relevant to your audience, but firstly, you need to capture your user's attention by creating an attractive email header.
The header section is where you’ll include information such as the recipient, the sender and a subject line. Also in the top section of your email header, you’ll want to have some of your company’s branding combined with some engaging graphics or text. According to research, the average office worker receives over 100 emails per day to express the importance of attracting your users' attention. Therefore you only have seconds to capture their interest.
You’ll want to ensure your header includes your company logo and engaging graphics relevant to your branding.
“Forty-seven percent of recipients decide whether to open an email or not judging by the subject line, while 69% of recipients report email as spam driven by the same reason.” - Stripo.
Considering that you only have one single line of text available, your subject line is vital to your click-through rates. You’ll need to carefully craft your subject line to entice your users because, essentially, the subject line is the first thing they will see when the email arrives in their inbox. Be aware that there shorter subject lines will receive higher click-through rates. According to Campaign Monitor, 41 characters is the recommended length for a subject line.
Should the user to click and open the email after reading your engaging subject line, the next step is to ensure the user continues reading your email by producing an attractive title such as “Welcome back” or “Here is your free download.”
With the above complete, you should focus your attention on creating content that is valuable for your audience to read. This is where you begin to create content that will eventually generate B2B leads and sales.
If you promote your products or services, the critical content is the descriptions you’ll need to add for each product. Ensure that the wording is clear and concise for each product or service.
Evergreen content is hugely impactful to your B2B email marketing campaign. The difference here compared to writing a product description is that you’ll want to create valuable and educational content for your audience to read. Some ideas to get you started could include guides, tips and tricks and basically anything that will help your audience relate to what you’re offering. The concept of evergreen content is to keep your existing client base hooked with valuable information and gain trust by attracting new customers.
Making sure that your content is original tells your customer that you have spent time crafting this email and that you are offering something of unique value.
As with most aspects of marketing, whether it’s SEO or content marketing, quality always outweighs quantity. You are more likely to get a better ROI should you combine the above with consistent scheduling.
All text and images should be produced to a professional standard, and the style and tone of your email are suitable for your target audience. Most people will likely get distracted if they have to read a massive piece of content. Therefore consider breaking your email down into readable paragraphs, sentences, bullet points and use call to action buttons.
There are dozens of great email service providers to choose from and it’s about making the right decision for your business and client database. Do some research on which provider will give you the most value for money. Our advice would be to look for a top 10 list of best email providers to help with your decision.
There’s nothing worse than spending all your time, effort, and money creating a new email marketing campaign, for it to just end up in your customer’s spam folder. This can significantly impact the number of open rates and clicks to landing pages on your website and is something you want to avoid.
One way to tackle the above issue and improve deliverability is to authenticate your domain.
When sending your email, email servers will determine the authenticity of your email. It will look at your sender list, the email content, and whether you have the correct records and keys set up. Any of the top email service providers will be able to ensure the safe deliverability of your email campaigns.
Email marketing is still at the forefront of any B2B marketing strategy, whether attracting new customers or retaining existing ones.
Need help setting up your email campaigns and automation? Please speak with us today on a free discovery call to understand how Carter Consulting can help your business.
