Email Marketing is a highly trusted and effective method of marketing, especially in a B2B setting. While B2C marketing focuses on emotion-driven purchase decisions, B2B focuses on logical process-driven decisions.
In a B2B scenario, a purchase is usually high involvement, so the decision maker has to put in considerable thought and research before making a purchase.
Sometimes, there is more than one person involved. All of this needs to be considered before making an effective B2B email campaign.
This may seem like a daunting task, especially if you have deadlines coming up. This is why, we have curated a succinct list of do’s and don’ts of a B2B email marketing campaign for you.
What to do for an effective B2B email campaign?
Did you know that email is the most influential source of information for B2B audiences? Furthermore, an impressive 79% of B2B marketers cite email as the most effective demand generation channel.
So what are you waiting for? Make sure you do the following to optimize your email campaigns and achieve the best results possible.
Do create a customer persona
For any marketing initiative to work, the customer needs to be at the centre. This is even more true with B2B Marketing. To do this effectively, you need to create a customer persona.
A customer persona is a semi-fictional customer, that represents the key traits of a large segment of your target audience. It is created by educated estimating and researching your user behaviour and web analytics.
It can give you key insights into what the thought processes of your contacts may be like. Moreover, you will also be able to figure out their pain points and where they are on their buyer’s journey.
This is essential because once you have this information, you can use this to send them emails that are valuable to them. For example, if in consideration stage, educate them about the category your firm operates in. If already a customer, send email campaigns that encourage them to remain engaged with you.
Do remember the importance of logic
For optimizing your B2B email campaigns, what is important is focussing on logic, and factual information. This is because in a B2B setting, the decision makers have more power within their company and thus, are less likely to make a decision based on their emotions.
Thus, your B2B email marketing campaign needs to take a more logical approach, with facts and numbers. Most importantly, keep your messages short and straightforward, as they probably do not have much time.
You also need to make sure that your subject lines catch their attention quickly. People usually decide if they want to open an email or not based on the subject line. Also, be careful to not include any words that may trigger Spam filters.
Finally, have patience with your email marketing approach, as being a high involvement purchase, it might take longer to have measurable results, depending on the size of the target company and the level of bureaucracy they may have.
What to avoid to ensure B2B email marketing campaign success?
Avoiding the following mistakes will ensure that your B2B email marketing campaigns generate the ROI that they are capable of.
Don’t just sell, but educate
As we mentioned earlier, B2B are usually high involvement purchases, which means that your prospects need to interact with you at least 7 or 8 times before they feel ready to make a (purchase or any other required) decision.
As a result of this, you want to make sure that with your email campaigns, you educate your audience instead of simply sending them 10 different offers. If you are sending a CEO a promotional offer without building a rapport, he (or she) is likely to ignore the message.
Did you know that the CTR (Click-through Rate) for B2B emails is 3.2%, compared to B2C emails which is only 2.1%.
This means that people are interested in B2B emails and you should take this opportunity to educate them by providing valuable content with straightforward information, facts and actionable insights. Instead of using CTAs like “Buy now”, put “Learn More” instead.
Do not forget to validate your mailing lists
This may be the last point of this post, but it should be the first thing you do when planning out your next email campaign. It is important to emphasize this because this part can be easily overlooked.
Be it any email campaign, you need to make sure that the quality of your list is top-notch. You can do this by using an email checking tool, which helps you get rid of invalid and harmful email addresses such as spam traps that can endanger your sender reputation. These tools are easy to use and can save you a lot of precious time and money.
TheChecker is a cost-effective email verifier, which is rated number 1 according to reviews on platforms such as Capterra, and G2. However, if you need to evaluate different email verifiers, you can do so here. You also need to work on improving your Sender Reputation to improve your email marketing ROI.
Concluding thoughts
You probably had a few ideas on optimizing your B2B email campaigns, and now you have some more. Begin by putting everything on a paper (or a screen) and organize all your thoughts and actions. B2B Email Marketing is essential in this day and age and you are now equipped to make your campaigns as successful as they can be. To make it easier, you can compare and then choose an Email Marketing software.
Do create SMART goals (Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based) and do not forget to measure the success of your email campaigns. We are positive that you will achieve the results you worked for. If that was helpful or if you have any questions feel free to drop us a line in the comments.