B2B email marketing is tougher since it targets a rather well-informed customer base of businesses. The sales cycles are also longer as compared to B2C, and it includes multiple touchpoints with wearing modes of communications.
This being said, B2B marketers also need to customize their efforts as per the particular industry they are working in. Email marketing is the number one channel for B2B marketers to distribute their content.
In this article, I will discuss tips and tricks that you can apply for optimizing your B2B email campaigns to get the best results. Dive in deeper to know more.
Define Your Ideal Buyer Profile And Campaign Goals
Optimization of your B2B email campaigns starts with defining the ideal buyer profile for your business. Study the customer demographics and include the touchpoints that will impact the ROI of your efforts.
This is the first step recommended by email developers working across many B2B organizations. The benchmark for email marketing ROI sits at $40 per every dollar invested into it.
Once you define the ideal buyer persona, you shall also define the campaign goals for tracking the results against them. Undertaking both of these exercises will help you personalize and segment your efforts to tapping the most relevant customers first.
Knowing their sales cycles and pain points helps in creating relevant email campaigns. Have a look at this table to develop your B2B email marketing strategy:
Build A Healthy Email List
It is well known that you should never buy an email list. Building a hygienic mailing list should be on your top priority, and for the B2B clients, nothing works better than lead magnets offering insights into the industry. You can offer whitepapers, ebooks, free tools, and other forms of privileged content sources to build your email list.
I strongly recommend using double opt-in to ensure your hygiene off your mailing list. You can also go for co-registration with reliable business partners to build your mailing list faster. Once you land in your target customers’ inboxes, you can ask them to whitelist your mailing address to improve your sender reputation.
Optimize Your Messages For Mobile Users
\Mobile optimization is no longer an option with increasing numbers of users accessing their emails from smartphones. It is recommended to use responsive HTML email templates for ensuring all-round accessibility of your messages.
We use touch screens through our terms, and these templates will help your readers access the information without pinching and scrolling endlessly.
B2B campaigns require mobile optimization more than B2C as multiple touchpoints come into the equation. Compiling any of your customer’s employees to use a particular device is surely the last thing you would want.
Offer Value For Readers That Helps Them Take Decisions
B2B email marketing should be then while keeping in mind the fact that your products or services are relatively less tangible for your buyers.
They might use your products/services for catering to their customers, and thus, your job as a B2B email marketer is to educate and offer real value for your readers.
Making it easier to sell your products is the first step for optimizing B2B messages. User-generated content (UGC) is a great way of establishing trust and around 82% of consumers find it as extremely valuable. Focus on offering value that drives decisions instead of sending promotional messages. Here’s a great example of doing so:
Use Personalization And Segmentation Proactively
Personalizing your messages for the right (segmented) recipients increases the effectiveness of all email marketing campaigns.
To understand the power of personalization, consider the fact that a personalized CTA generates 202% higher revenue.
On the other hand, segmented emails generate up to 58% of the entire revenue. In a B2B environment, more number of decision-makers are involved so you need to target them as the customer form advances in your sales funnel.
Therefore, automating the personalization and segmentation functions proactively helps you engage your clients faster and better. You can also create drip campaigns to offer targeted content.
Make Use Of Analytics For Improvization
You can use analytics to your benefit both before and after sending the messages. The data availed from A/B Split testing allows you to send the best version of your email and align your messages with the customer expectations.
On the other hand, analyzing email metrics like open rate, CTR, revenue per email, revenue per campaign, and engagement rate gives an idea regarding which points required improvization.
If you are following the points mentioned above, there won’t be a need for a complete overhaul. You will need to check for minor issues like whether your email copy is aligned with the rest of the elements and if there’s any technical issue with deliverability like a cold IP address.
Summing Up
One thing that I have learnt through my experience in the industry and found other B2B marketers preaching is that you don’t need to scrap your existing approach as long as it is delivering some results.
Conducting best practices and removing loopholes from your strategy is quicker and easier than starting from square one.
You can use these tips to keep your email campaigns relevant and extend a refined user experience. I hope you find this article on optimizing B2B email campaigns insightful for getting the best results.
