The Ultimate Guide to B2B Email Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to B2B Email Marketing

B2B email marketing efforts have traditionally been more serious, drier, and less entertaining than B2C initiatives. Old-school email marketers claimed that whereas B2B was all about rationality and numbers, B2C purchasing choices were driven by emotion. That is not always the case.

There are many purportedly best practises for B2B email marketing, but there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy that ensures success.

Smart marketers understand that B2C email marketing campaigns can teach them a lot about engaging customers and developing memorable content.

The most effective B2B marketing campaigns challenge perceptions and evoke strong emotions in their target audiences. They receive honours and industry recognition (for the right reasons).

In order to help you lay a strong foundation upon which you can unleash your creative side and produce content that you're proud of, we've put up a list of B2B email marketing tactics.

What is the distinction between business-to-business and business-to-consumer email marketing?

It’s important to note the differences between B2B and B2C email marketing, so you can better tailor your campaigns to your B2B target market.

Sales cycle

The B2B marketing sales cycle is typically much longer than the B2C marketing cycle, though this isn't always the case.

It's the time it takes a client to choose a candy bar or flavour of ice cream compared to the time it takes a firm to determine which software to acquire or which fleet of company cars it wants to purchase.

This suggests that you may be writing further emails to guide the customer through the sales process and persuade them to buy.

The sales funnel has more stages as well, and you may move back and forth between them frequently. This implies that you must send the appropriate content at the appropriate stage of the procedure.

More stakeholders

When it comes to B2C marketing, the decision about which product to purchase is frequently made by only one person, while it is true that friends and relatives may also be engaged depending on the transaction. Many people are frequently involved in the decision-making process when it comes to B2B marketing.

Consider investing in email marketing software as an illustration. The CEO, the head of the marketing division, your most experienced email marketers, the heads of sales and purchasing, and even the CEO, may be involved.

This means that you must choose which of these B2B stakeholders your marketing efforts will be directed at. You can even choose to design various email campaigns for certain stakeholders.

?Top 7 B2B email marketing strategies to try

Avoid putting the horse before the cart. Before you start implementing a number of email marketing strategies, make sure you have a plan. Before you start your efforts, take into account these seven B2B marketing tactics.

1.?Establish buyer personas.

The fictionalized versions of your ideal clients are called buyer personas. B2C buyer personas are made up of details on specific people, like their age, location, job title, level of income, and preferred social media and advertising platforms.

The information in B2B buyer personas is relevant to the industry you are targeting. This covers the size of the company, the industry, the employment function or roles, the budget, and the problems that need to be fixed.

Tips to create buyer personas?:

If you want to develop thorough buyer personas, talking to people and learning as much as you can about their businesses is essential.

Talk to industry insiders: Tap into your existing network of connections and ask them questions about the types and sizes of firms that would be interested in your product, who the decision-makers might be, and what difficulties they face.

Send a survey to existing clients to gather as much information as possible about their particular position and business information. If you offer the survey taker an Amazon gift card or a discount on their purchase, you'll get more responses.

2. Grow your email list organically

If you have 10 relevant contacts who are interested in what you are selling, it doesn't matter how few individuals are on your email list.

Avoid the temptation to purchase B2B email marketing lists because doing so could turn off potential clients. No one enjoys getting emails they didn't sign up for, unless they're telling them they won $1 million. Additionally, it might get you in legal trouble.

You must work hard to expand your email list naturally, which is why. Even though it takes longer than purchasing a list, your B2B email marketing will perform better. Additionally, if you've already developed buyer personas, this will be considerably simpler.

Tips to grow your email list organically:

By using these B2B email marketing suggestions on how to build your list organically, you can concentrate on quality leads rather than just trying to get as many people to sign up.

Reach out to your network: You can certainly come up with a few people who would be interested in your product if you reflect back throughout your career. Ask them if they would like to receive your emails when you get in touch with them. Additionally, you can advise your network on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and other social media platforms how to sign up for your list.

Create a sign-up form: Consider the data you must gather from potential leads, such as the size of the firm, the industry they are in, and whether they are the decision-maker. As many consumers begin their product search on Google, be careful to optimise this form so that it appears in search results.

3. Send cold emails carefully

Cold emailing is a contentious B2B email marketing strategy that you should utilise with extreme caution, but if done correctly, it may be profitable.

Even though we wouldn't often advise B2C marketers to send cold emails, conduct some study to locate some email marketing examples of B2B cold emails that are effective.

Tips to send cold emails carefully:

Less can be more. Avoid bombarding recipients with impersonal emails that are irrelevant to them. This is how to go about it.

Check your contacts to make sure they fit your buyer profile before emailing them. This refers to both the company they work for and their position. If you're selling email marketing software, avoid emailing the HR department.

Personalize the content: You must at the very least spell the initial name correctly. However, if you have done your homework on your contacts, you should be able to send highly customized content that makes mention to their company, their job title, and any other pertinent information you have learned.

4. Prioritize drip campaigns

Drip campaigns, also referred to as autoresponders or automations, are a helpful tool for guiding clients along the sales funnel.

Drip campaigns are automated email sequences that are started when a customer does a particular activity, such subscribing to an email newsletter.

The emails are sent out automatically rather than having to be manually created for each consumer for each action.

Drip campaigns are essential to maintaining consumers' engagement regardless of their stage in the customer life cycle because B2B email marketers typically have to deal with a lengthy sales cycle.

Tips to prioritize drip campaigns:

Here's how to design drip marketing that interest clients and persuade them to buy.

Determine triggers: Consider potential consumer activities that could result in effective drip campaigns. A simple example is joining an email list, but attempt to develop drip programmed that are unique to your company. If you sell software, a demo request might start a drip campaign for you. This could be a request for a product catalogue if you own a stationery business.

Produce relevant and captivating material. You must have content prepared for each stage of the drip campaign. To advance prospects to the next level of the sales process, be sure to invest in high-quality content marketing.

5. Track results

Your job as a B2B email marketer is never over. You must monitor the effectiveness of campaigns, deciphering the causes of their triumphs and failures, and refining them in light of this knowledge.

Remember that what works now might not work in three months’ time, so you need to be tracking results over time.

Tips to track results:

Each company will define success differently, so keep in mind to concentrate on what you want to do rather than industry norms or what your rivals are doing. This is how to go about it.

Establish quantifiable objectives since it's impossible to gauge performance without a clear picture of success. At the beginning of any campaign, set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and time-bound) goals so you can gauge its success.

Track pertinent metrics: If increasing social media followers is your campaign's primary objective, you must monitor the number of people who visit your social media pages. The amount of signups each campaign must be measured if your goal is to obtain demos.

The best email marketing software for B2B companies?

It’s important to choose a solution that has the specific functionality that B2B marketers need to best serve their customers.?

We’ve put together a list of the best B2B email marketing software to help speed up your decision.

Laying the foundations

Many email marketers dream of working for intriguing brands and organisations in glamorous and exciting areas like fashion, leisure, and travel, at least in the beginning of their careers. The same is true for journalists and content marketers. Many of my friends toiled away in an effort to get entry into these competitive businesses.

But content, including email marketing campaigns, is only as interesting as you make it.

You can produce the kind of content that makes your B2B competitors envious if you do your homework, put in the time, use the correct tools, and automate tedious procedures.