Business-to-business email marketing is a particular approach where you target companies rather than individual clients with your email messages. The majority of us have experience with B2C email marketing. It is particularly true if you purchase online since many stores want emails when you make an order.

A small number of newsletters are also common in B2C email marketing, particularly with NGOs. Even without a purchase, they will sometimes capture your email in exchange for a discount. Following that, you’ll get notifications about any upcoming sales, promotions, and product launches.

Today, however, B2B companies are also dipping their toes into email marketing. Any effective B2B marketing plan includes email marketing as a component. Email campaigns that are strategically designed may generate leads, nurture leads, and turn one-time customers into recurring customers.

Why you need B2B emails

Because you’re attempting to open two doors with almost similar locks, but different keys, conventional email marketing strategies don’t work for B2B campaigns. Here are a few particular instances when generic email marketing strategies in B2B campaigns go wrong.

Time Your B2B Marketing Mails Well

Timing is very important, especially when it comes to B2B marketing mails. While B2C mails might be opened at any time, both in and out of office hours, recipients of B2B mails are more likely to open them during office hours. 

Therefore, make sure that your emails go out during recipients’ office hours. If you have recipients across multiple time zones, then you should look at segmenting your email list. 

Besides this, you should also think about which day of the week is best to second out emails to your leads.

Friday is notoriously terrible for sending B2B marketing emails. Even if you send them during office hours, the recipients might not be able to open them as they rush to wrap things up for the week. By the time Monday rolls around, your email is probably buried under dozens of new arrivals. 

Monday is also typically not ideal, as everyone is busy orientating themselves into the new week. 

Tuesdays are typically one of the best days to select, as they tend to be the days with the least pressure within the weekly work cycle. 

A/B Testing

One of the most vital email practices you should carry out is A/B testing. A/B testing will give you an idea of which types of subject lines perform best, how different CTAs compare in terms of click-throughs and conversions, and what time of day is best to send out B2B marketing emails. 

What’s more, if you have the right tools on hand, A/B testing is very easy to do. Here at Vertical Response, our A/B testing tool allows you to quickly and effortlessly create A and B versions of marketing emails so you can achieve the very best results in your campaigns. 

All of this can be done seamlessly through our email marketing and automation software. 

Not using email software yet? It’s probably time you started. 

Automated email campaigns generate better results, which is one of the reasons why 85% of B2B marketers utilize email marketing software. 

Target Decision-Making Units

Last but not least, try to target entire decision-making units within a team or company.

Many people feel like they should just focus on trying to reach the CEO. 

But in reality, there might be a variety of people who have a shared say in buying decisions.

Ideally, you want to be able to target all of these individuals within one team or company. When it comes time to discuss a buying decision, if all of them are in your sales funnel, you’ll have an amplified chance of success.

Email focusing

Unlike most email marketing initiatives, B2B campaigns target businesses, specifically several people inside a single business. A B2B email recipient is in charge of every step of their purchase process, whereas a company’s purchasing process includes employees in various positions. A B2B target is a set of targets, and your plan must consider the variations among various contacts inside a firm. It implies that to successfully reach people, you must send many emails to various recipients inside the same target organization.

Cycle time

Independent purchases don’t take too long. The purchase process might resemble herding cats for a business. Since email marketing campaigns continue the whole customer journey, plan on your B2B marketing cycles being a lot longer.

Email content and tone

When a B2B email is focused on offering tools and information, it often performs better. To demonstrate your brand’s worth to a B2B subscriber, provide educational material like trend reports, industry benchmarks, how-to guides, and webinar recordings. What this implies, in reality, is that you’ll have to find brand-new content formats and kinds to employ for your B2B marketing.

Let’s examine the finest strategies for converting your audience with them in mind.

1. Pick the Best Email Service Provider for Your Business-to-Business Emails

Depending on your demands, several email marketing solutions are competing for your firm. There isn’t just one undisputed supplier. For email management, well-known brands include. Since most of them can utilise B2B and B2C initiatives, you may wish to start with the one that works well for your B2C campaigns.

However, your B2C email service sometimes fails to perform properly for sales pitches. In this situation, choose a service that offers CRM capability, social scoring, tagging, automation, and the capacity to build popups and landing pages for your lead magnets that will aid your B2B marketing. You’ll be able to handle all of your B2B email marketing in one location.

2. Knowing the goal and having a plan

Many people send emails without fully comprehending the initial purpose of the communication. Think about your campaign’s goal before you start writing. Is it just for informative reasons to send out an email newsletter? Is it to offer knowledge to address a customer’s issue or to generate leads? It all begins with understanding the goal.

3. Create an email list

List development comes first in master email marketing for B2B. By gaining new subscribers, you may gather valuable leads and advance them through your marketing and sales funnels.

You need an opt-in form to build your list, emphasising the advantages of signing up for your newsletter. Lead magnets, an alluring gift in return for a visitor’s email address, are often used by B2B marketers to boost registration rates.

An e-book, whitepaper, presentation, checklist, or any other valuable piece of material that your future client could find helpful might serve as your B2B lead magnet.

4. Create brief topic lines.

Your customers will view the subject line of every email you send first. It’s important to get it correctly. You must captivate your readers and compel them to open your email. According to research, 47% of respondents base their decision to open an email exclusively on the subject line.

Therefore, it contributes much to increasing your open rates. Additionally, open rates are unquestionably crucial. If you want people to read your stuff, you must do that. Maintaining briefness is key in this situation; aim for 3-5 words. You may also add a few emojis and/or a number to entice the reader. Don’t allow the fantastic writing you’ve done to go to waste. Spend time creating a compelling subject line that will entice your readers to continue reading.

5. Pay attention to the appearance and design

The next step is to design and present your email, which is simple to read and use. Your readers will get disinterested if you don’t. They could scan the text or stop reading halfway through. Keep your emails brief, precise, and organised. Make sure they are digestible and aesthetically attractive.

An appealing layout will pique readers’ interest right away and keep them reading all the way through. Additionally, always utilise a mobile-responsive design since many of your readers will be accessing your content on smartphones.

6. Stage-by-stage campaign planning

The B2B customer journey should mostly be reflected in the B2B email marketing cycle. You can know that your emails are relevant to your target and where they are at any given moment by organising your campaign around the phases of the customer journey.

7. Design the Ideal Welcome Email

A strong first impression is the foundation of every successful consumer or company relationship. As you know, B2C encourages first-time buyers to make purchases by offering discounts in welcome emails. This procedure is a bit different from B2B email marketing.

Create a welcome email template highlighting what your subscriber can do with your goods or services as the first thing you need to get right.

Of course, you may utilise discounts to persuade those who have signed up for a free trial to purchase a premium membership. However, you’ll have greater client retention rates if you educate them first and convert them afterwards.

8. Engage in dialogue

It’s simple to go too far into a professional mode when producing B2B material and end up sounding stiff and robotic. Even if your targets are brands, remember that you are also writing to individuals.

Empathically guiding your campaign will enable you to establish a connection with your audience. Consider it from the standpoint of a person: what kind of business emails do you pay attention to? Which topic lines do you click on, and which do you immediately delete?

Conclusion:

Success in B2B email marketing is crucial for generating and developing sales leads. Putting your best foot forward is more crucial than ever as email communication becomes a more vital method of communication. Fortunately, you have a decent chance of success if you adhere to these best practices.

© 2021, Chris Duncan. All rights reserved.