Even with the rise of social media, messaging apps, and other digital channels, email marketing remains an essential tool for B2B marketers.
Why is email so important for businesses selling to other businesses?
Because B2B email marketing is super-effective:
- 77% of people prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications via email than any other medium.
- 91% of B2B marketers believe email marketing is the most important channel for B2B content marketing success.
- For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect to generate $43 in return.
But like any marketing channel that works, there’s plenty of competition. That’s why you need to have an effective strategy.
5 B2B Email Marketing Best Practices
Before we dive into the best practices, it’s important to note that email should be a part of your overall strategy along with social media, etc.
If you want to find out more about B2B marketing on social media, check out our post, 3 Super Effective Ways You Can Use LinkedIn for B2B Marketing.
Now, let’s explore the five most crucial B2B email marketing best practices.
1. Define Your Goals
How will you measure the success of your campaign if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve?
You should set a specific goal. That could be generating leads, increasing sales, or building brand awareness.
Before you write your first email, define an objective. This will impact the content of your emails and how you structure your campaign.
2. Take Time Crafting Your Subject Lines
Your subject line is the first thing people will see when your email lands in their inbox. You’ve got a handful of words to convince them to open your email.
According to HubSpot, 35% of people choose to open an email based on the subject line alone.
Communicate the value of your email upfront and keep it short. Subject line length is important. Use strategic words that absolutely convert.
According to Brian Dean at Backlinko, the ideal subject line length is between 36-50 characters:
You can also use A/B testing to experiment with different versions of your subject lines and see what is more effective with your audience.
3. One Call-To-Action Per Email
What is it you want your audience to do after reading your email?
Visit your website and read your latest blog post?
Book a free consultation?
The answer to that question is key to creating a single, compelling CTA.
When you provide too many options, you risk “analysis paralysis.” Your audience gets confused about which thing to click on first and ends up not clicking on anything. One CTA simplifies the decision-making process.
4. Segment Your List
Your email list will consist of people at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Some will be hot leads, some will be existing customers, and some may have only just heard about you.
Sending out the same email to everyone is a sure-fire way to frustrate people. That’s why you need to segment your email list.
You can create different audience segments based on where the recipient is in the buyer’s journey and tailor your email content to their needs.
Existing customers can receive guides and content to help them get the most out of your product or service, while prospects can get more of your sales and relationship-building content.
Not only will this help to make your emails more relevant, but it can also significantly boost your B2B email marketing performance. According to Lyris, 39% of marketers who segmented their email lists experienced higher open rates:
Email segmentation also helped to increase revenue for 24% of marketers.
5. Personalize
Personalization is one of the most critical elements of a successful B2B email marketing strategy. According to Campaign Monitor, personalized email messages generate 14% more clicks and 10% more conversions.
You can get personal by addressing the recipient by their name and sending your emails from a person at your company rather than an anonymous business account.
If you use email segmentation, you can make your emails more personalized by keeping the message and offer super-relevant to the recipient’s needs.
Boost Your Lead Generation with Email Marketing
While email marketing can be difficult, especially cold outreach, it’s a great way to generate new leads and build relationships with prospects.
The above B2B email marketing best practices should help you get started, but like all marketing, testing and optimization are vital. What works for one company might not work for you.
The only way to create a successful campaign that generates sales and drives revenue is to test, track, and improve.
If you could use help taking your email marketing to the next level, contact us to request your FREE email marketing strategy consultation.
