For every type of commerce, email marketing remains one of the most successful promotional methods. However, depending on the business organization, the approach to this marketing channel should be different to ensure efficiency. It should come as no surprise that practices for B2C marketing will not suit B2B promotions fully, since their product, target audience, and transaction form differ. How should wholesalers organize their email campaigns, then?
In this guide, we’ll share the most effective strategies for email marketing B2B companies can use, as well as some of the tips from our professional marketers and top campaign examples. Read ahead!
What is B2B Email Marketing?
Sending email campaigns to companies or professionals instead of individual clients or consumers is known as business-to-business email marketing.
This type of business employs different strategies and communication techniques compared to B2C or D2C brands because the target audience is different.
In general, B2B marketing aims to reach people who are buying for their company or on behalf of it, making the company the customer.
According to 40% of B2B marketers, email newsletters are the primary source of sales, and over 80% of B2B organizations utilize them as part of their content marketing strategy.
You can utilize email marketing to increase revenue, lead generation, and brand exposure by compiling a database of interested contacts and delivering them tailored messages. The best part is that it’s simple to get started and reasonably priced. By taking the effort to create relevant and interesting content, you can increase sales and leads, establish connections with other companies, and eventually boost your bottom line.
What are the Benefits of Email Marketing for B2B?
Effective B2B email marketing offers numerous advantages for businesses, allowing them to establish seamless communication with customers and automate promotions. Let’s look at the main reasons why business-to-business firms should invest in developing their own email marketing strategies.
Direct Communication
Emails offer a more individualized form of communication. Even though you address business representatives, it’s still important to establish a smooth connection as a basis for a long-lasting partnership. Using B2B emails, you can directly present your deals, provide useful information, make important announcements regarding your products and services, and more. For instance, you can send them messages about the stage of purchase, subscription status, shipment details, etc.
Building Relationships
When you establish a personal connection with your customer, it helps build more solid and long-lasting relationships and trust in your brand. Then, clients are more inclined to engage, be responsive to your offers and initiatives, and share information important for your marketing strategy optimization. With that in place, you efficiently send businesses relevant emails that advance them in the sales funnel by using a personalized B2B email campaign.
Cost-Effectiveness
Email marketing is less expensive than other marketing strategies, like paid and print ads. While spending less money compared to other types of promotions, like direct mail marketing, you can reach a large audience all at once and deliver your content effectively.
Boosting Sales
When you can customize your emails for particular audience segments, your leads have a significantly higher chance of becoming sales. They are more likely to make a purchase, sign up for a service, or ask for more information if you provide them with material and products that are relevant to their needs and interests.
Data-Driven Strategy
Thanks to advanced analytics provided by the top email marketing services, such as Klaviyo, Omnisend, Mailchimp, and others, and email heatmap functionality, you can easily figure out what your prospects are doing.
With the information you gather from your B2B email marketing, you can make far better decisions. You can watch who opens them more quickly than any superhuman speedster, what they click on, and what they delete. Then, you can utilize the information you have received to alter and enhance your approach.
Why B2B Emails Require Appropriate Strategies
Relying on generic strategies for B2B email campaigns won’t deliver the expected results. For this commerce sector, you need to adjust your tactics to reach the right audience and fit into the specific purchasing cycle.
Email Targeting
B2B campaigns target businesses, or more specifically, several people within a corporation, whereas most email marketing initiatives target individuals. A company’s purchase process involves personnel in a variety of positions, whereas a person receiving a B2C email is in charge of every step of their own purchasing journey.
Defining a business-to-business (B2B) target actually means defining a set of targets, and your B2B web marketing plan must take into consideration the variations among various contacts inside an organization.
Cycle Length
Selling to an individual buyer is relatively simple and quick. In contrast, the decision to purchase your service or product by another firm must pass through several departments or managers. This extends the entire purchasing cycle. You should expect that your marketing cycles for B2B organizations will take significantly longer because email marketing campaigns span the entire customer lifecycle.
Email Tone and Content
When writing business-to-consumer emails, you can be more explicit about your intention to close a deal because customers are aware that they are consumers. Announcements like sales, discounts, and promotions are appropriate for a B2C campaign, but they might seem odd in an email sent to a company.
When B2B emails concentrate on offering resources and information, they typically perform better. Trend reports, industry benchmarks, how-to manuals, and webinar recordings are examples of educational content that can be used to demonstrate to a B2B subscriber the value of your brand.
B2B Email Marketing Strategies That Work
Now let’s look at some of the best email marketing strategies for B2B used by top marketers. Following these strategies will help you set up proper communication and marketing and reach the desired KPIs.
Mastering Segmentation
It has been demonstrated that segmented programs increase email income, which makes them a crucial part of any B2B email marketing campaign.
The process of segmenting your email list involves going into sublists to send more pertinent emails. Your email list should be divided into segments according to needs, interests, behaviors, region, industry, past exchanges, etc.
Some of your clients, for example, are employed in the retail sector, others in financial services, and still others in technology. These industries all face different challenges, so sending generic messages with the same intent and offer won’t bring the desired results. Your content will become even more interesting if you can use this knowledge and customize your campaigns accordingly. It will increase the likelihood that prospects will read your emails and follow through with your call to action.
B2B email marketing necessitates more business-oriented segmentation techniques than B2C customer segmentation, which allows you to classify your audience. Here are some common criteria that you can use for B2B segmentation:
- Firmographics describes a number of clients/subscribers, industry, and corporate size.
- Decision-makers include executives, managers, and others.
- Business requirements include objectives, revenue targets, and pain points that connect your clientele segments.
- Potential suggests profitability and purchase readiness.
Profiling Target Customers
When you target a specific business-to-business organization, you are focusing on that organization’s buying center, which is the group of individuals who decide whether the organization will buy your product.
There are six primary functions in the buying center:
- Initiators
The first employees of a corporation to learn about and show interest in your product.
- Users
After the business decides to buy your goods, users are the ones who will utilize it on a daily basis.
- Buyers
The administrative and logistical facets of a possible acquisition, such as budgeting, contract terms, renewals, etc., are handled by buyers.
- Deciders
The ones who make the final decision on whether to allow purchasers to proceed with a purchase.
- Gatekeepers
The individuals who manage the information flow to and from other buying center members are known as gatekeepers, and they are typically administrators.
- Influencers
Any employee in an organization who has an impact on the choices and viewpoints of other buying center members.
Thinking Like a Buyer
Profiling your target audience and segmenting it only marks the start of your journey into personalized content creation. With the use of a customer profile matrix, it’s easier to reach an understanding of which email formats are appropriate for every role in your target customer’s buying center. How-to manuals, for instance, might appeal to users and initiators but not to procurement-focused buyers. Put yourself in the place of your customer and think about what they would want to see from your company. Adapting emails to specific requirements increases success rates and reduces spam reports and unsubscribes.
Sending High-Quality Content
Another key B2B email marketing strategy, which can also be applied to other commerce types and non-profits, is sending relevant content of high quality. However, we recommend focusing on educational content in place of promotional materials. Let your contacts make their own choices rather than continuously bombarding them with marketing material.
The value of your product or service can be increased by your educational content.
By doing this, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field. You could show your clientele that you understand their goals and worries. Make sure the emails you send are useful. Give them some advice or offer a solution to an issue they might be having in their field, one in which you just so happen to be an expert.
Making your content more distinctive and memorable is something else to think about. You have the luxury of examining the marketing data to determine whether your ideas are successful, so don’t be scared to try new things and think creatively.
Calculated Timing
When deciding when to send your B2B marketing emails, don’t overlook this factor. Consider the days of the week, work schedules, and time zones.
B2B email marketing is more effective in the mornings and earlier in the week, but you should test other times to discover what your customers like.
You should concentrate on developing an email content calendar that makes sense for your prospects if you want to connect with other companies. This entails considering when they are most likely to check their email, the types of messages they are likely to reply to, and the frequency with which you can expect them to interact. This will increase your chances of reaching your target audience and getting the outcomes you want.
Focusing on Personalization
To provide more relevant content, personalization is a crucial B2B email marketing strategy.
By customizing messaging for particular roles, industries, or problem points, personalized B2B email marketing makes your outreach more relevant and compelling. This focused strategy raises conversion rates, fosters confidence, and enhances open rates.
Read our comprehensive guide to find more information on personalized email marketing, best practices, examples, and tips from Flowium’s experts.
Using Automation
You can create workflows using email marketing automation to send customized emails to the appropriate consumer groups at the appropriate times. Additionally, you may manage contact lists, plan and schedule campaigns, and monitor results.
Using a B2B email marketing platform can simplify and expedite your entire email marketing process, whether you’re sending bulk emails or scheduling sequences.
Capitalizing on Analytics
Monitoring crucial marketing metrics such as open, click-through, and conversion rates allows you to gain significant information about the effectiveness of your campaigns. Understanding what is and is not working enables you to make better decisions and adjust your next campaigns. For instance, you can adjust the next campaigns to concentrate on specific results and increase your click-through rates if particular subject lines or email formats have higher open rates.
Analytics are also excellent for monitoring the effectiveness of automated promotions. You can view the response rate of an automation sequence and make necessary adjustments to enhance performance.
Correct Email Marketing B2B Planning
The B2B customer journey should be roughly reflected in the B2B email marketing cycle. You can make sure that your emails are pertinent to both your target’s identity and their current location by organizing your campaign around the phases of the customer journey.
The buyer journey has major stages, and each stage is ideally suited for a distinct kind of information.
- Awareness
Although the audience is becoming more knowledgeable about your product and brand, they are not yet seriously considering buying. The target can get more familiar with your brand with the use of thought guides, how-to manuals, and other instructional content. Product demos, case studies, and client endorsements can all help the target learn more about the benefits of your offering and encourage them to buy.
- Making a decision
The target is interested in purchasing or testing your product, but they are still weighing factors like cost and ROI to decide if they are prepared to make the purchase. Cost estimates, discounts, and free trials can sway your target customer toward a purchase.
After your prospect becomes a client, you want them to keep using your product, renew their subscription, or take advantage of additional opportunities to stay in touch. High-quality instructional materials and product tutorials can help your target to maximize the benefits of your product and keep them as a customer.
- Advocacy
Loyal consumers can become brand champions, spreading the word about your product and attracting new customers, which will bolster your marketing efforts. Customers can become more involved in brand advocacy through surveys and offers for referral programs.
Using Templates
Another useful item to have in your work-smarter-not-harder toolkit is an email template. It takes effort to build a strong library of high-quality templates, but you’ll feel the benefits of investing your time and effort in it very soon.
When using templates, it’s important that the recipient of the email can’t know they’re a template. Create a library of templates for the various email formats you frequently send, making sure each template has its unique visual identity while utilizing the same brand components.
Email templates come in three primary varieties:
- Transactional (often include information about the transaction and are delivered following a purchase or sign-up).
- Relationship (establish or preserve a connection with the recipient).
- Lead-nurturing (for individuals who have expressed interest in your product or service but have not yet made a purchase).
Using AI
Developing an AI marketing strategy is becoming more and more crucial, and this also applies to B2B marketing initiatives. You can utilize artificial intelligence to improve your business-to-business email marketing in the following ways:
- Text generation
AI writing tools can quickly produce email copy. You can customize your messaging to your exact specifications, including voice, product positioning, persuasiveness, and comedy. Just make sure the last eyes are human.
- Translation
In addition to translating communications into other languages, many AI writing tools can also use natural language processing to take slang and regional dialects into account.
- Optimized subject lines
AI text generators and chatbots can be used to test out different wording that adheres to a strict character count if you have trouble coming up with an attention-grabbing subject line.
- Automated campaigns
Simply delegate the entire process to the robots when in doubt. AI sales assistant applications can automate whole outreach efforts for you. Additionally, AI is being used to optimize the majority of marketing automation tools.
- Lead generation
AI programs can immediately scrape the web for verified contact details.
Cleaning Up Database
It’s time to tidy up your marketing database if it is jumbled or haphazard. Regularly cleaning up your contact lists is essential, much like organizing your closet or going through old documents. Dead weight, such as inactive subscribers or inaccurate data, must be removed in order to achieve this. This will boost your deliverability rate, protect your company’s reputation, and make your database easier to administer.
B2B Email Marketing Best Practices
In addition to general strategies, we’ll also share some practical tips for helping you build up your marketing effort more easily. Here are the B2B email campaign best practices that we believe are worth adding to your workflow.
Establish Clear Goals for B2B Campaigns
You send different types of campaigns depending on what you intend to achieve. You strive to get more leads and prospects, then send promotional content with incentives; for client retention, offer enticing benefits of loyalty and referral programs, and so on. Your content planning and writing have to be based on your objectives and KPIs.
Write Effective Subject Lines
The subject line of your email should be intriguing, informative, and, ideally, catchy. It should catch the reader’s eye and pique their curiosity, much like the headline on a billboard. Identifying a prevalent issue in your industry and suggesting that the email contains a solution is a smart strategy.
Make It Concise and Direct
Your mail shouldn’t be too long. Divide the text into manageable paragraphs; if you want to make many points, use subheadings.
Emails should be concise and free of extraneous information that could lower reader attention. Make sure the primary call-to-action is obvious because your email should be succinct and actionable. Avoid using too many photos or links.
Use One Call to Action
We always recommend limiting each message to one main call to action because too many options might be confusing. Make it obvious by emphasizing your CTA with buttons or highlighted text.
Create a Professional Responsive Design
Since your target audience is another business, even in your email design, you need to show that you can be a reliable service provider or supplier. Make sure your messages look professional and clean, with a direct presentation of your offer. Don’t make it cluttered with images and dynamic graphics like videos or animations. Ensure the mobile-friendliness of your email designs by testing how they appear on different devices.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that your B2B email marketing campaigns should be boring. You just need to understand that your content needs less eye-striking design than, let’s say, a B2C firm selling products for kids. Strategically use whitespace and brand-appropriate colors to direct attention to what matters.
Use A/B Testing
It is a mandatory practice in B2B email marketing to test your email’s components. Determine which version of your email copy, subject lines, and calls to action convert the best.
Utilize every A/B testing option that your email marketing software provides to streamline the process. Your optimization efforts will be more successful the more features you have available.
To start, send test emails to a select few subscribers to gauge their reaction. By doing this, you may improve your email approach before sending it to everyone on your list.
Remember to track the outcomes of your email marketing efforts. Keep an eye on important indicators like the open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates. You can use this data to determine what is effective and what needs to be improved.
Comply with Data Privacy Standards
Always be open about the data you gather and get express consent before sending marketing emails to abide by data protection regulations such as the GDPR. To preserve confidence and prevent spam complaints, make it simple for recipients to opt out or unsubscribe. Deliverability may be increased, and compliant email lists can be created by working with a reliable B2B data source.
Customize Fields
You can use import fields in the email itself to include the recipient’s firm in the subject line, ensure that the email is addressed to them by name, and add additional information that makes your email appear less generic.
Similar to subject lines, B2B emails should prioritize custom fields above consumer blasts. The majority of emails from that booze delivery app are just one big image with a discount or offer; they aren’t addressed to me specifically since they don’t have to be.
Be Conversational
Even though we emphasize that your B2B marketing campaigns should be professional, don’t let them look dry by using a robot-like tone. It doesn’t matter that your client is a business; behind its contact is a human representative who would still appreciate a sincere communication. Think about what challenges your client might face and what is the best way to offer your assistance. You can establish a connection with your target audience by conducting your campaign with empathy.
Create Lead Nurture Campaigns
Adding value at each step of the buyer’s journey is the aim. Nobody likes to feel like they are always being sold to. However, everyone enjoys free things. Therefore, provide your leads with insightful material that is appropriate for their stage of the journey.
The Best B2B Email Marketing Examples
To offer you a better understanding of how businesses use the methods we mentioned, let’s look at some B2B email examples that brands chose for their effectiveness and performance.
Welcome B2B Email by Intercom
Subject Line: Welcome to Interconnected Smiles Davis!
The first message you send to new subscribers is a welcome email. Since these automated emails are delivered at the precise moment the recipient has chosen to establish a relationship with your company, they usually have very high open and engagement rates.
The sample below shows how Interom’s email subject line greets new members of the community before listing all the newsletters available to the reader. Intercom is segmenting its new subscribers by providing a range of options.
This straightforward, customized email is a great approach to remind your new leads of the original reason they signed up!
Promotional B2B Email Example from Packhelp
Subject Line: Packaging designed to fit your products? 📐
Thank-You Email Example for B2B from Moo
Subject Line: A really, really big thank you
A thank-you email is an excellent method to establish a connection with your audience after they have downloaded a piece of material or finished an action on your website. An online print business, Moo, successfully uses this email to express gratitude to the recipient. In its message, the brand thanks its clients for engagement and purchases, which add a little bit of a personal feel to the communication between businesses. Even though this example doesn’t have it, we recommend adding links to your resource page and product page in addition to the thank-you note.
“What’s New?” B2B Email Example
Subject Line: What’s New in Miro | August 2024
“What’s new” emails are crucial because most customers won’t know about your ongoing changes or new features unless you actively convey them. Sharing updates as frequently as Miro does helps this company keep clients’ trust by demonstrating that it’s in their best interests. They notify their email subscribers about significant changes as soon as possible to prevent confusion or support problems. In the example below, you can see that they do it concisely, explaining all the updates with illustrations and links for more info.
B2B Email with Educational Content
Subject Line: BD Pro Tips: SEO & Content Strategy
Promoting firm case studies, manuals, infographics, or white papers to increase lead generation is a very B2B approach.
This content marketing approach seeks to send current or potential clients pertinent recommendations that will help them simplify their operations. At the same time, companies like Builder Designs use this as an additional opportunity to show their expertise and promote services as a solution. In the B2B example below, you can see this strategy in use with an excellent execution. While presenting dynamic visuals and embedded video, the email doesn’t feel overwhelming thanks to the calm color palette and white space.
Business-to-Business Re-engagement Email Example
Subject Line: Welcome back!
After running your business-to-business email campaign for some time, you might discover that some of your subscribers are no longer responding to your emails. With material specific to your company, a B2B re-engagement campaign can help pique their interest and motivate them to begin responding to your emails once more.
This is exactly what Asana does to connect with users who were inactive for some time. To rekindle interest in the platform, the email first informs that there were some sorts of important updates and improvements. This can encourage clients to check them out and find out about new functionality. The company also shares a link to a webinar that would help users speed up the learning process. It also promotes collaboration by suggesting to invite a teammate. Overall, this message clearly translates the company’s intention to re-engage its clients by providing useful content for free.
Event Announcement/Invitation Email from Zoom
Subject Line: [You’re Invited] Best Practices for Hosting Digital Events
Sending out event emails is a great approach to draw in new clients and convince them to use your services to solve their problems.
Understanding the task, Zoom produced a successful event email that effectively and simply advertises their digital events.
Depending on their demands and level of experience with Zoom Events as a new solution, the email invites readers to take part in one or more virtual webinars to gain more knowledge.
Zoom uses “You’re invited” in the subject line to customize the email and give the user a sense of appreciation for being chosen to attend these webinars.
Our Tips for Better B2B Email Marketing
Understanding the appropriate methods and the function of email in your marketing plan is essential for operating successful B2B email campaigns. This strategy allows you to avoid frequent mistakes and achieve your goals faster.
Here are some tried-and-true B2B email marketing techniques to help you get started:
- Never buy email lists.
- Provide high-quality, relevant material with a clear and compelling call to action.
- Use a reputable email marketing platform.
- Monitor your campaign’s performance and continuously optimize based on the findings.
- Use colors that are consistent with your branding when designing emails.
- Keep the content length short and to the point.
- Ensure that if your email directs the reader to a landing page, it meets the expectations set in the email.
Conclusion
The process of writing emails for your business-to-business clients calls for targeted messaging, customization, and an additional degree of professionalism. This affordable instrument effectively helps with building relationships and boosting sales, so it should be an essential component of any marketing strategy. We’ll assist you in choosing and managing a B2B email campaign approach that is effective for your company. Contact us now!
