Email marketing is a staple in B2B marketing. With 93% of B2B marketers using email to distribute their content, it is an important part of any B2B marketing strategy. As digital marketing channels become the primary focus for marketing efforts, email becomes a prominent focus for lead generation and lead nurturing. To excel in your email marketing, it is critical to master the foundations. Start with this email marketing guide filled with B2B email fundamentals to see boosted results.
Create An Email Contact List
To send emails, you need to have contacts to send them to. Without a list, your email marketing efforts can’t live up to its full potential. So, how do you start creating and establishing an email marketing list? While there are a few options to get your list-building efforts going, your website plays a large role. Much of your audiences get to know your company and brand because of your website. Utilize your website as an opportunity to convert visitors to leads and valued contacts for the formation of email lists.
There are additional digital marketing efforts that you can utilize to help establish and grow your email list. For example, social media, paid ads and search engine optimization to get people to sign up for your lists or even promote a blog that has a newsletter call to action (CTA).
Define Email Goals
Email marketing is important, but what does email mean for your company? Defining what it means for your company is even more important. While every organization is different, it is critical to be able to define goals and set objectives for email marketing efforts. These will guide in what types of emails are sent and to what audiences. The types of emails can vary from sales generation (an email with special offers), to lead nurturing (an email or newsletter with educational/thought leadership-focused content) or product education (product tips and tricks emails).
Inclusion of Personalization Tactics
While personalization isn’t a new aspect of digital marketing, it is continuing to become more valuable. 90% of people say they find personalization appealing. The level of personalization can vary, but something as simple as populating a person’s name and company name in an email can go a long way. Audience members want to feel valued and it is in your best interest to deliver the most personalized experience that you can. As more businesses, especially competitors, utilize social media, email marketing and more, they will also be offering those personalized experiences. Creating a human connection with audiences and forming those valuable relationships can start with a small personalization effort which helps your marketing campaign or content to stand out.
Once there is a plan on what type of emails to send, then you can set a cadence for frequency to ensure consistency of communications. Figuring out a schedule that aligns with your goals can help elevate your marketing efforts and achieve your overall business goals.
Align Email Content with Objectives
Email content and design are the building blocks of informing your audience about your organization. The look and feel of it says a lot about you and it is important to make sure it aligns with your objectives. Depending on the type of email that you are sending can largely influence what content and design elements are included. But, some elements are universal to include throughout all types of sends such as:
- Consistently highlighting the key messages of your organization
- Using brand identity elements throughout all marketing/sales efforts
- Including valuable, informative and relevant content
- Using clear call-to-actions (CTAs) that include something of value to the reader
Save Time with Automation
Sending emails one by one is not ideal and can be extremely time-consuming. This is where email automation can come into play and help the email send process, provide valuable analytics on email performance and often reduce overall email marketing cost. Email platforms can provide email automation among additional marketing automation abilities. Rather than sending emails manually, you can preload the content, upload or select the contact list and schedule the email when you want. Automation can also help in the lead nurturing process. For example, if someone downloads a content asset on your website, there can be a follow-up email triggered automatically from your email automation platform. For more information on automation check out our “Email Marketing Best Practices” blog.
We hope this B2B email marketing guide was useful for you, but if you are looking to elevate your email marketing and B2B lead generation efforts, we can help! As a full-service Austin B2B marketing agency, we help your team generate leads, drive revenue and achieve business success. Contact us today or request a free marketing consultation with one of our B2B marketing experts.
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