Do You Want to Improve Your B2B Email Marketing Strategy
It is not easy to get consumers to buy, especially when you use B2B email marketing.
Email can be a powerful tool to generate business. It’s been done before and it can be repeated again.
The type of business and customers you target will determine how you do this marketing.
B2B can be described as buying or selling products/services, exchanging information between business entities.
This should be reflected in the design of your email marketing campaigns. It is impossible to take a random approach to email marketing and expect results.
Your B2B business will benefit greatly from a well-planned email marketing strategy.
It is therefore one of the most popular forms of online marketing for the B2B sector.
Email Marketing vs B2B
B2C, or Business to Consumer, best practices in email marketing are well-known.
Various businesses from the B2C sector regularly apply them.
But, B2B and Business to Business email marketing is different.
You can’t just send the same B2C message to real people who run real businesses even though they read your emails.
You can’t expect positive results from B2C email marketing tactics. B2B email marketing is not different in any one area, but in many.
It is important to grasp and use this information as soon as possible.
What you do to generate business is the biggest difference between a B2C relationship and a B2B one.
If you are running a B2C company, you need to connect with your customer on an emotional level in order to persuade him or her to buy your product.
On the B2B side, however, connections are made with other business entities on the basis of pure logic.
Until you help potential customers understand the logic behind purchasing your product or service, it is not possible to understand.
You won’t achieve your true business goals.
Your marketing efforts should be focused on what is important to other businesses and how they can benefit from your services.
Before we get into the details of how to create a B2B email plan, it’s important to understand how businesses do things.
You can use B2B email marketing to spread the word about your brand.
If you don’t have the right foundation, even the best B2B email marketing plan will not help you achieve success.
More Than One Email
You may have heard about email marketing online.
You can also do it more than once to help you make a purchase decision.
This is true for both B2B. It actually gets stronger.
B2B purchases are more expensive than B2C.
Customers will not buy your product or services on impulse.
You will need to build a positive impression on other businesses by being an email marketer B2B and then educate them with each step.
This means that you will have a longer buying period.
Expecting your B2B email subscribers to purchase from you immediately after receiving the email is sent will only lead to disappointment.
B2B campaigns should contain multiple emails that are intelligently spread over a long time.
This will depend on the product and the amount of investment required.
This could be a campaign that is event-driven and focuses on nurturing each lead it receives.
Send them a welcome message once they sign up for your email list to get started.
This is an essential requirement for all brands, as 75% of users expect to receive a welcoming message after signing up for your list.
According to eMarketer 90% of these leads become cold within an hour.
This is why it’s important to include this welcome message in your email marketing in order to spark your leads’ interest in you brand.
Learn Instead of Selling
B2B email marketing is great if you are focused on creating and sending content that educates.
This is not a push to make you buy your product.
If you send your B2B recipient information via email about the product and the problem it solves, they will be more likely to buy.
This is before you move on to the selling portion, which can be done online.
Admitter, a B2B email marketing agency, found that:
…90% of call to action text that contained “more information” performed better than CTA text that included “buy now”.
This confirms the idea that selling is better than educating.
AdRoll did a similar Facebook study. The “Shop Now” buttons were more frequently used, while the “Learn More” buttons had a higher CTR.
B2B customers are cautious about choosing the right product or services to invest in.
It is important to inform them about their options and provide them with more clarity through useful/entertaining content.
Credible references, scientific research, case studies, and other supporting information can be used to support your content.
Think again if you think that your B2B email subscribers will be excited about your product if they only look at the benefits.
B2B professionals want engaging content that’s both captivating and informative.
You can win when you create content that communicates your message creatively.
You are selling content before you sell the product. This is how you can help buyers make their decision.
Segment emails The B2B Way
Remember that email marketing is a great way to reach B2B customers. However, the final purchase decision is often made by multiple people.
A group of people decides whether or not to purchase a product.
This group is known as the Decision Making Unit (DMU).
When creating email messages, it is important to consider the perspectives of everyone in the DMU.
Because everyone will see your B2B email from their own perspective. This is the email list segmentation at the next level.
People in the DMU play different roles within the company, and they have specific goals or targets.
A Chief Operating Officer, for example, won’t have to face the same problems as the Chief Tech Officer.
They will have different priorities and concerns.
Your goal is to alleviate the pressure or pain points that are affecting the executive you’re targeting.
This will result in greater engagement and long-term success via email marketing.
Before you send any emails, take some time to plan your B2B email marketing.
Segment and target more accurately by collecting data beforehand about every important person in your company.
How to Develop a B2B Email Marketing Strategy That Works
It is essential that you have a solid plan for B2B marketing that aligns with your business goals in order to achieve real success.
A good plan will help you get more clarity and will allow you to write better emails later.
Let’s take a look at the five steps you must follow to create an email marketing strategy that delivers real results.
Step 1: Determine which businesses you should target
The first step to creating an email marketing strategy that is results-oriented is understanding your target audience.
Marketing in the B2B space requires that you get to the heart of your target market’s challenges when marketing.
This will allow you to contact the right business entities and also give you clarity about how to improve your product.
Although your target market might be small, as long as you are able to offer solutions that work for them, your email marketing campaign will succeed.
Learn as much about your target market as possible to generate more business, especially in B2B.
This allows you to provide products and services that meet their needs.
Although it may seem simple, this is a crucial step in your B2B email marketing.
You can do market research to understand how different businesses could benefit from your company.
You need to be focused on how to best approach them via email
If your target industry has a high open rate for a certain type of subject line, make sure you use it more.
The same logic applies for the language you use in emails as well as the content you send your B2B recipients.
You can get more leads by not overlooking even the smallest details, such as call-to-action buttons in emails.
Your email marketing results will be more precise if you have a better understanding of your target market and their approach to email.
Let’s suppose your company helps companies keep their computers safe from hackers and viruses.
Until you are certain which companies require your security services to protect their machines,
It would be very difficult to design an email marketing campaign that is targeted at them.
It is important to focus on your target businesses and learn which ones would be most compatible with your company.
Your emails should reflect your values, and show B2B recipients that your research has been done.
Let them know you are aware of the problems they face and how your product/service could help.
You will get more conversions if you educate them, not sell.
Last, but not least, when you are trying to understand your target audience, don’t overlook the obvious pain points your team already knows about.
These may help you find business entities with a high probability of becoming customers.
Find a balance between what you know and what you should know about your market.
Step 2: Define your B2B customer persona
To make your B2B email marketing campaign a success, it is important to identify your target customers.
To put it another way, you need to be aware of the personas of your target customers in order to create the best emails.
Your target customer persona may not be the best representation of your ideal customer, but it can go a long ways.
This will help you gain clarity.
This is how to define your B2B customer persona for your email campaign.
1. 1. Knowing the challenges faced by your ideal customer is essential in order to sell the product or service you are selling.
Are you solving the right problems with your product? What challenges might your target companies be facing?
What can you do to help your customers in the most efficient way possible?
2. Next, consider the type of businesses that you want to target with your offer.
It is easier to identify your target customers when you know what type of company you are targeting.
You should also know the industry and number of employees of the target company.
3. We discussed that different employees might be authorized to purchase products.
It is important to identify the job title of the person most likely to purchase your product.
Which role does it play? Or is it the director? Or is it the manager?
What is their typical job title? What products do they usually buy?
4. The company will have goals for your target persona. They will have job responsibilities.
This is why it is important to determine how the company measures its performance.
How are they advancing their careers within the company? What does success look like for them?
What will your product do for them?
It is crucial to understand how your B2B target audience interacts with vendors. What is the reason?
You need to provide the best buying experience for your customers to close the sale.
You should be able for them to buy from you according to their current expectations. What will you do to sell to them?
Do they feel comfortable purchasing the product via email? Or do they prefer to communicate over the phone first?
Or maybe they just want to meet up in person after a meeting via email.
You can get a better understanding of your B2B customer persona to determine the type of companies that your email marketing will target.
This improves your online marketing efforts.
Step 3: Set Measurable Email Marketing Goals
A B2B company must have goals or objectives.
It’s because it is very difficult to grow and achieve long-term success without them.
Your business goals will help you make your B2B email marketing campaigns work.
Your goals will help you to strengthen your market position and your standing with your customers.
When it comes to goals, you cannot just set them randomly.
It is important to make sure that every goal you set is measurable and smart so that success can be measured more easily and scientifically.
It is easy to establish B2B email marketing goals.
You will be able to set the right goals if you are clear about your online marketing goals and what you want to accomplish with them.
Some B2B companies might set higher goals to reach their goals quickly.
This is a costly mistake that you need to avoid. It will cost both subscribers and sales.
Instead of setting vague goals like “to get more leads”, focus on something tangible and measurable.
It sounds more specific and appealing to say, “To get 35%+ email leads and 20%+ phone leads for product XYZ during the month of December”, which is more targeted and attractive.
What is more important than a vague goal or a quantifiable one? The kind of results that you can generate.
As B2B companies, it can seem difficult or even downright confusing at first to set achievable goals.
It is possible to communicate with colleagues about what you want from your email marketing campaign.
Also, set a date to achieve this goal.
These should be written down in quantifiable terms, so that you can measure the results of your campaign.
A B2B company serving technology companies might be interested in generating qualified leads through their email marketing efforts.
A fashion company might want to increase awareness of its brand and expose its products more.
Make friends with numbers, such as dates, percentages, and dollars. If you are looking to achieve precise and measurable goals, this is the best tool for you.
Once you’ve established the right goals for B2B email marketing, it becomes much easier to move on.
Step 4: Plan ahead to stay a step ahead
It is a good idea to work with your team in advance when creating an email marketing strategy.
This ensures that everyone is on the same page at the launch of the campaign.
Make sure you have a detailed plan that outlines what will go in the plan and how it will all be implemented by your team.
To ensure that your B2B email marketing campaign is a success, your team must have as much clarity as possible.
You can ignore this step and not implement it before the rest of the team grasps the core concepts.
…then there may be conflicts of interest and problems.
These are the essential elements to ensure that your email marketing strategy is optimized well in advance.
- Communication of company ideas that can lead to meaningful conversations about the product, brand, or the problem your product solves
- Analyzing results is based on click-through rates and how many prospects moved on to the next stage in the buying cycle due to the email.
- Segmenting prospects is based on various factors, such as how long they’ve been on your email list, what type of content they have seen, and what attracted them to your company’s mailing list.
- Email messages can be customized based on when they are sent, to whom they are sent and to what purpose.
- To determine the effectiveness of each email campaign, test it and see if there are any improvements.
- Follow up with prospects to answer any questions or concerns that might be preventing them from moving forward with the buying process and doing business with your company.
It is normal for people in authority positions to be too focused on new products/services.
Promote it via email to create the same excitement. This may initially seem positive, since you are taking action.
It can also work against you, as you could lose money if your email marketing campaign is not optimized properly.
You can get sufficient feedback by keeping all your team members informed, or at the very least, the relevant ones.
To achieve a higher return on investment.
Step 5: Analyze what’s working and what’s not
You may feel that you have created a solid B2B marketing plan for your business once you’re done.
You should review your plan and examine it to find areas for improvement.
Depending on the company’s structure, you may need to do a weekly or monthly analysis of the email marketing tactics and techniques you use.
This is to show them how to take them to the next level.
While you can analyze and improve your B2B email marketing strategy, it doesn’t mean that you should abandon what is working.
You don’t need to make any major changes if you are seeing the results you expected.
If you discover that email marketing is not working for your business despite all of your efforts, it’s time to start over.
You don’t have to abandon a tactic if you are unable meet your goals. Instead of throwing out the tactic completely, look into why it isn’t working and see if there are minor adjustments that can be made.
Are you experiencing a low click through rate? Check if the copy is action-oriented, and if your call for action matches your message.
Are there not enough recipients who open your emails? Your subject line could be to blame.
Do you have a high bounce rate You should make your landing pages more memorable by using relevant and engaging copy.
It is important to take the time to evaluate your email marketing campaign, and to make improvements as necessary. This will help you to survive where others have failed.
Hire an email marketing company to help you grow your contacts, send emails and get leads.
Get in touch today to learn more about how we can help you grow your business.