When it comes to B2B marketing, email is king. According to research, it’s one of the top methods for lead generation. Most importantly, it’s the most effective way to nurture those leads.
Given these facts, it’s unsurprising that more businesses are getting into the email game. As Moira van den Akker explained in a recent Forbes.com article:
“You don’t need a crystal ball to see that 2019’s business-to-business (B2B) marketing landscape will be more competitive, fuel the ever-growing list of marketing technology, and pave the way for better and more engaging methods to reach prospects and customers. But with so many emerging trends on the horizon, where should time-pressed and resource-constrained B2B marketers focus their attention?”
Modern B2B marketing is such a crowded field that there’s nothing unique about sending an email.
It’s estimated that people send about 269 billion emails every day.
That figure is anticipated to rise well above 333 billion daily emails within the next few years.
So what makes an email stand out among millions? Experts agree the quality of the content is key. If your email is relevant to the recipient, it already has a leg up on the shotgun blast of generic emails filling their inbox.
Why is B2B email marketing important?
B2B email marketing isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a need-to-have. It’s a crucial tool for connecting, engaging, and nurturing relationships with potential customers.
Here are a few reasons why B2B email campaigns are important:
- Targeted communication: B2B email marketing allows you to reach a specific audience, enabling you to tailor your messages to address their unique needs, pain points, and interests. This targeted approach increases the relevance of your emails, leading to higher engagement rates.
- Relationship building: Email marketing provides a consistent and personalized way to nurture your relationships over time. Regularly delivering valuable content and insights yo positions your business as a trusted advisor and industry expert.
- Cost-effectiveness: Compared to traditional marketing channels, B2B email marketing is downright cheap. With the right strategy, you can reach a large audience at a fraction of the cost of other marketing methods.
- Analytics: One of the significant advantages of email marketing is the ability to track and measure campaign performance. You can analyze open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more to help you refine your approach and improve results over time.
- Automation and personalization: Email marketing platforms offer automation and personalization features that can save time and improve the relevance of your messages. Automated drip campaigns, for example, can deliver a series of targeted emails based on the recipient’s actions or interests.
B2B email campaign tips and best practices
What would make you open the email, read past the headline, or engage with the call to action? If you fail to use this empathetic strategy, it’s highly probable you’ll create an email that you wouldn’t read.
On the other hand, if you deliver the kind of quality content that you appreciate and respond to, the results will be much better. As marketing expert Phillip Alexeev observed:
“B2B companies that leverage content marketing significantly outperform those that don’t, both in terms of traffic volume and lead volume. B2B buyers are also becoming increasingly more prone to conducting their own research, so lacking content to aid them in their research can mean an immediate disqualification from their considerations.”
Alexeev’s point is that content will always be crucial. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling vacuums or cloud storage, your emails had better have heft. Here are 5 ways you can bolster the quality of your B2B emails:
1. Make the email justify its existence
Many businesses have legacy emails they’ve always sent on the same day of the week or month. While this kind of consistency can be good, don’t fall into the trap of sending emails simply because the schedule calls for it. No message should leave your building unless it has a purpose. If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, there’s no shame in holding off until you do.
2. Target your recipients
In the good old days, businesses were judicious about mailing marketing materials because of the costs of postage. Nowadays, lots of businesses blast their emails out to anyone with a pulse. Avoid this travesty by scrubbing your email lists and only sending emails where it makes sense. Following this strategy will reduce your unsubscribes, lower your complaints, and increase your engagement.
3. Write a killer subject line
Too many times, entrepreneurs labor over the body text of an email, then quickly jot down a subject line. This approach is self-sabotage because the finest email in the world is worthless if it’s ignored due to a weak subject line. Improve your subject lines by front-loading the benefit to the recipient. Keep them as short and direct as possible.
4. Make the email easily accessible
Your recipients are busy, so don’t waste space with excess text. Make your email lean and mean.
Consider using subheads or another formatting technique to make it more scannable. Few people will read every word, but you can make sure that most of the people who open the email get the general message.
5. Send them someplace nice
As you craft your email, pay attention to your recipient’s intended destination. Are you sending them to a landing page or another web page? Wherever you direct them, clear the path and make sure it’s a seamless transition. When a person clicks on a classy email and then gets dropped on a sloppy page, it’s like having a bucket of cold water splashed in their face.
Get started with B2B email marketing
By following these tips, you’ll not only improve the effectiveness of your email efforts, but you’ll be doing the world a favor. Far too many lousy emails zip back and forth through the ether, and your quality messages can be a breath of fresh air. Send the kind of content that makes recipients lean in closer to the screen, sometimes even slowly nod their heads while reading it.
The bottom line is that sending emails is a responsibility. Taking that responsibility seriously is the best way to ensure that others take you seriously. For more tips on email marketing best practices, check out SendGrid’s Comprehensive Email Marketing Guide.
