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Email Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses – Backed By Industry Experts

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In today’s covid era, social media has become a helping hand for b2b marketing where one can make its exposure.
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Email Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses – Backed By Industry Experts

Introduction

Owing to a myriad of benefits, it has become essential for B2B companies to employ Email Marketing for a positive growth and enriched ROI. Yet, a lot of marketers make the same mistakes of following the similar approach for B2B campaigns as they do for B2C companies.

Moreover, for the past few years, marketing experts are of the notion that email marketing might be an old alley for companies to walk over.

However, the following statistics provided by Salesforce.com, have revealed the significant impact that a well-executed B2B email marketing campaign can bring to your organization:

 -For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average ROI on email marketing

 -72% of B2B buyers are most likely to share useful content through email

 -77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications via email.

So, in this article, we’ve collaborated with a few marketing experts across the globe who have shared their valuable views and insights on “Email Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses” that help you master for high open rates, high conversion rates, and, of course, more revenue for your business.

Here’s Our Expert Panel

#1 Karen Talavera

Success in B2B email marketing means understanding how to play the long game; that is, how to nurture budding relationships and grow them slowly yet consistently. Most B2B purchase decisions go through levels of evaluation and layers of approval that can take considerable time. The best B2B email marketing campaigns recognize this because they not only consistently drip information to and draw it from prospects, but also continuously nurture subscribers with content, tools and resources to inform and ease decision making and favorably influence purchase. So don’t wing it – plan your conversational email dialog with prospects right from the start. Develop sequences, series and drip campaigns to prospects and new subscribers using automation, and don’t forget to test offer and content placement throughout. The path to conversion in B2B marketing may be longer and more winding than in B2C, but a well-crafted email strategy will successfully propel prospects forward in their journey to becoming customers, and keep new customers supporting, happy and loyal.

Author Bio

Karen Talavera is the founder and principal of Synchronicity Marketing, a data-driven digital marketing consultancy. As current Vice Chair of the Email Experience Council she is a recognized global expert, thought-leader, speaker and professional educator with 20 years’ experience in email and digital marketing strategy. Karen has contributed to e-commerce performance improvements for countless brands in DTC, financial services, travel, healthcare, retail and tech including Google, Disney, Kendo Brands, Lenovo, City National Bank, AAA, Fidelity, Amway and many more. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

#2 Ian Brodie

The first thing to point out (as I’m sure many others will) is that just because you’re doing “B2B email marketing” doesn’t mean you’re emailing a business. You’re emailing a person. A real human being within that business. And just because they work for a business doesn’t mean they leave their humanity, their emotions or their sense of humour at the door. Far too many business to business emails are bland and corporate and devoid of personality and interest. As a result, the human beings who receive them just ignore them.

The one thing that is different about b2b emails is that usually you’re marketing higher value products and services. That means that unlike consumer or small business emails, no one is going to click a link, whip out their credit card and buy your product. The buying cycle is much longer, may involve multiple people, and you need to build significant credibility and trust before they’ll be ready to buy. So your emails need to be focused on building that credibility and trust, and you’re usually aiming not to get a click to buy, but to start a conversation by email or phone or video that begins to take your relationship to the next level.

Author Bio

Ian Brodie runs an online training company that helps consultants and coaches to attract and win more clients by harnessing their unique skills and capabilities. Ian’s been named as one of the Top 25 global thought leaders in marketing and sales and one of the “resources of the decade” for professional services marketing. He’s the author of the best-selling book on email marketing, Email Persuasion. He’s also the King of Lockdown Hair. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

#3 Virginia Zacharaki

In my experience, email marketing for B2B businesses has become more sophisticated. However, there are several tricks you can use to enhance the success of your marketing efforts.

First of all, you need to hyper-personalize your emails, meaning that you need to use customer data to create your message. Studies have shown that this technique delivers higher conversion rates. Therefore, using artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time data can help you take your campaign to the next level.

Secondly, you need to segment your email list to reach the most relevant audience out there, as your subscribers may either be looking for a different solution or be in a different stage of their buyer’s journey.
Furthermore, you have to avoid your email getting lost in the vast inbox everyone is facing daily. Thus, coming up with some clever and enticing subject line can increase your open rates and put you back in the game.

Finally, I would suggest the use of one call to action (CTA) per email, as you need your subscriber to be focused on your goal and not multiple possibilities. This is the way to help the decision-making process. Once you’ve got the desired amount of attention you will have plenty of time and ways to negotiate.

Author Bio

Marketing Communications Associate at Moosend, a highly competitive Email Marketing and Marketing Automation platform. Passionate about knowledge, learning, teaching and creating. Tend to live as a ballerina bookworm. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#4 Jeannette Castaneda

Email marketing is an excellent tool for developing 1-1 relationships with your prospects. Because many B2B sales cycles can take months, and even a year, developing those relationships is crucial to an eventual sale.

We are living in the era of the “empowered consumer.” Your leads have more control over their inboxes than ever before. Spammy behaviors like sending generic sales messages to a purchased list are not only less and less effective, but are now proving counter productive. With one click the Empowered Consumer can kick any brand out of their inbox, banishing them forever. And, just like that, that lead is gone forever.

Because the main goal of B2B email marketing is to educate, engender trust, and demonstrate the brand’s superiority over the competition, the best B2B email marketing strategy is one where you achieve your goals by helping your subscribers achieve their own. Therefore, as you’re planning your strategy, it’s best to use the following as a guiding light:

Every email should be:
– Wanted
– Helpful
– Well-segmented
– Customer-focused

A well-thought out B2B email strategy can not only convert leads at scale, but when done right, it can also shorten your sales cycle.

Author Bio

Jeannette Castaneda is the founder and CEO of email marketing boutique agency Inbox P.I . Inbox P.I. helps turn leads into customers and customers into fans by using email & marketing automation. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

#5 Sumeet Anand

 

In the present era, most B2B marketers are going for blogs and social media. They constitute a significant part of the budgets, but email marketing remains essential. It is a cost-effective solution for lead generation.

According to Campaign Monitor, there was a rise of 760% revenue for personalized emails for B2B businesses. So, B2B marketers can’t neglect the importance of B2B marketing.

But for a successful email marketing campaign, one needs to follow the right strategies. Here are my go-to tactics that you may use:-

1.Always think about what your clients want from you. So, you’ll have to personalize the emails accordingly.
2.Make sure you have a catchy title and subject line. That’s the first reason your client will open the email.
3.Spend some extra time on the header as it is the first thing your client sees after opening the mail.

Create engaging content which is helpful for your client. Like I said, always think from the client’s perspective.

Author Bio

Sumeet Anand is a B2B Marketing Expert skilled in SEO, Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing. He helps brands and businesses out there generate leads with his top-notch content strategies and is featured on various major media publications across the globe. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#6 Dennis Yu

Unless you have a large, warm list, your top email marketing strategy in 2021 is Zoom webinars. Pick an industry figurehead and interview them on a topic that they clearly expert in– one which is also related to what your company does.

Most B2B companies mess this up by being overly promotional or turning the webinar into a testimonial. Don’t do that.

Also, collect just name and email for the webinar, even though the sales staff will eagerly want to push for phone numbers, annual revenue, industry, and other bits. Collect those later via your drip sequences.

After your webinar, turn the recording into a YouTube video, transcribe into an article, and make it a Facebook post from your page. Boost those posts for $1 a day for 30 days to your custom audiences (anyone who has been to your site in the last 30 days or anyone who has engaged on your page).

Author Bio

Dennis Yu is the CEO of BlitzMetrics, a digital ads and analytics platform. He’s a former Yahoo search engine engineer who optimizes ads and analytics across search and social media that he’s turned into training to create good jobs for aspiring digital marketers. Dennis’s personal mission centers around mentorship from his experience with helping people from all walks of life grow their expertise in digital marketing, sharing his insights from managing campaigns for enterprise clients like The Golden State Warriors, Nike, and Rosetta Stone. He’s an internationally recognized lecturer in Facebook Marketing and has spoken over 730 times in 17 countries, spanning 5 continents. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#7 Misty Larkins

Opt for informational over emotional when it comes to copy. People making business purchases typically have one goal: make or save the business money. Meet their needs by focusing on fact-based, informational content in your email communications.

Author Bio

Misty is the president of Relevance, a company dedicated to helping businesses grow market share and own their industries. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

#8 Eli Overbey

A Help Scout, we rarely send important communications to a large cohort. We publish emails as automated sends and then slowly drip folks in. Add 20, did we get the send /reply-to details right? And 80 more, have we had any interactions? What are we seeing in the data – – can we adjust the copy for clarity and conversion? Add 100 more — repeat until the data sends right, then send the rest.

Author Bio

Eli Overbey is the marketing ops at Help Scout. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#9 Emily McGuire

Email marketing has the power to build relationships at every stage of the buying journey. The problem is identifying key touchpoints and understanding how to nurture through email. Just like sales, it’s all in the follow up. Thinking of email as following up with contacts after they give you a signal that they’re interested in working together is a big mindset shift for many b2b marketers.

Author Bio

Emily McGuire is the Owner and Chief Email Marketer of Flourish & Grit(An Email Marketing and Automation Studio). With lessons learned over a decade in tech, sending thousands of email campaigns, and earning clients over $80 million in email campaign revenue, she loves sharing the mistakes and strategies of email marketing done well. You’ll typically find her with a cup of coffee in hand because #momlife. When her head isn’t in her laptop, you can find her chasing my toddler, reading a book, or binging trashy TV. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

#10 Mark Asquith

B2B marketing continues to develop towards the personal. Email marketing is a channel that allows for such a deep connection to be built with the prospect that, over time, our goal should be to help to make the prospect feel competent in our field so that they have enough knowledge to make informed decisions. Gone are the days of dictatorial experts; we live in a world where we can help to make the decision makers in B2B sales the internal experts in *our* fields so that they can focus on gaining internal buy-in. The best way to manage that with email is to make sure that we’re educating through quick hit tips that link to deeper educational pieces and then to make sure that we develop a surefire way of getting “eyes on” with the prospect. I like creating one-to-many group sessions and experiences on LinkedIn Live whereby we invite prospects to come to a group chat to see that we’re real people and then developing that relationship further from there. Make it easy for a prospect to say “yes” by transferring some of YOUR knowledge to them – make them feel and look good!

Author Bio

Mark Asquith is a serial entrepreneur who has built several globally successful businesses since he quit his real job in 2005.Billed as the U.K. podcast expert, Mark is CEO & co-founder of Rebel Base Media, a podcast tech and strategy company that owns Captivate.fm, Productivity, Podcast Websites, Podcast Success Academy & Rebel Base Studios and is well known as an insightful, thought-provoking and actionable podcast industry keynote speaker.

He’s a wildly approachable Brit, Star Wars/DC Comics geek and believes that good business starts with being good to people. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#11 Kate Barrett

B2B email marketing is all about building your relationship with the audience, and often demonstrating your authority and knowledge in your given area in order to help the contact learn, grow or excite in some way. Understand who your audience are and where they are at in their journey with your brand (through your data). This will help you to better target the right message, to the right person, at the right time to help build warm leads for your sales teams to follow up with accordingly. Take inspiration from strategies used in many B2C strategies and create personalised messaging and journeys based on your data where possible to nurture leads and turn them into customers and advocates for your brand.

Author Bio

Kate Barrett is the founder of eFocus Marketing, providing specialist email marketing consultancy, management and training services to companies around the world.

With a proven track record and over 14 years’ experience, Kate’s expertise and passion has helped a large range of companies (including Nissan, Marks & Spencer, Argos, Vision Direct and QVC among many others) develop comprehensive strategies, implement, manage and optimise campaigns, as well as solve complex email marketing issues.

Kate is a member of the DMA Email Council, regularly speaks at events, and is lecturer for the IDM and CIM.

Kate is also the author of the bestselling book ‘E-telligence. Email Marketing isn’t dead, the way you’re using it is’. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

#12 Mayank Batavia

1. When you try to address everyone, you address no one. To paraphrase David Ogilvy, don’t think of your subscribers as a crowd in a huge sports stadium. Instead, learn as much about an individual as possible and write so that it perfectly addresses the pain point of that individual. As a matter of fact, a great email is one that you can use only for one individual but not for anyone else!

2. No matter whether you’re in B2B or B2C, it’s important to remember that ultimately we’re all in B2H (Business to Humans). Customising your emails further and further might severely reduce the number of emails you can send in a single go, but each individual email you send out will produce an ROI that’d overtake the impact and ROI of a generic email many times over.

Author Bio

Mayank is Head, Marketing and Partnerships, at QuickEmailVerification. In addition to the exciting world of email and email marketing, he enjoys solving math puzzles and crossword puzzles. You can connect with him on Twitter.

#13 Paige Arnof-Fenn

In my experience there is no hard and fast rule and now with social media and all the guerrilla and digital marketing techniques it is not about the size of the budget the way it used to be. E-mail is a big part of my communications strategy. Here are a few tips that have worked successfully for me:

* If you have a contact in common who mentioned the person to you I start the email with a subject line of “XYZ suggested we connect ” so that even if they do not recognize my name in their inbox XYZ should ring a bell. If you saw them speak at a conference or read an article they wrote you can tailor the subject line to that such as “Loved your piece on ____ in HuffPo!” or “Great talk at the conference this week!”
* Then I check them out on LinkedIn and let them know in the email that “I see we also have # connections in common” to make me seem more familiar to them.
* Then I explain why I would like to connect to bridge the intro and suggest we set up a call at their convenience.

It usually works and it shows I have done my homework and am respectful of their time. Another tip is that the worst time to make a cold call to prospects in any region is 8-10am when everyone is rushing to work and preparing for the day but the worst time to call is the best time to email. Once employees are at work, the first hour is generally spent checking emails and organizing the day. During this hour, your email has a higher chance of visibility. Sending an email during their transit period places your email on top, and would be among the first they see as they open their inbox. E-mails that are sent late in the evening or early morning have a chance of being buried/missed.

Author Bio

Paige Arnof-Fenn is the founder & CEO of global marketing and digital branding firm Mavens & Moguls based in Cambridge, MA. Her clients include Microsoft, Virgin, The New York Times Company, Colgate, venture-backed startups as well as non profit organizations. She graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School. Paige is a popular speaker and columnist who has written for Entrepreneur and Forbes. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

#14 Felix Yim

My number one b2b email strategy is to get your messaging right from the start. Lead your campaign with how it can benefit the end user. At the end of the day, it’s important to understand that it’s a read person reading your email or offer, so you need to position your product / service in a way that benefits them and makes them look good in front of their boss or team. That’s usually saving their time or making more money. Position your emails right, and don’t be shy to lead with the benefit early on in the email to capture their attention.

Author Bio

Felix is the co-founder of GrowthBoost, an online journal covering the latest software and marketing tips for entrepreneurs. Alongside digital journalism, Felix recently graduated from university with a finance degree and enjoys helping students and other young founders grow their projects. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#15 Bryan Clayton

The biggest mistake we were making with our emails was using company logic as opposed to customer logic. You really need to put yourself in the mind of your customer when crafting your emails. Run your email copy by friends , and strangers, Get feedback because it’s so challenging to get out of your own skin.

Then , split your email up into micro conversions.

Subject- Just get the open

Sub head- Peak their curiosity

Header, convert that curiosity into interest

Body – quickly point out what you re going to do for them

CTA- Get them to the landing page

The goal of the email is to get a click. Do not try to make or close the sale in the email.

Author Bio

Bryan Clayton is CEO and cofounder of GreenPal an online marketplace that connects homeowners with Local lawn care professionals. GreenPal has been called the “Uber for lawn care” by Entrepreneur magazine and has over 200,000 active users completing thousands of transactions per day. Before starting GreenPal Bryan Clayton founded Peachtree Inc. one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee growing it to over $10 million a year in annual revenue before it was acquired by Lusa holdings in 2013. Bryan‘s interest and expertise are related to entrepreneurialism, small business growth, marketing and bootstrapping businesses from zero revenue to profitability and exit. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

#16 Erik Qualman

Spend the longest time on your subject lines. Everyone always spends hours crafting the body of the email and on the images inside the email. Yet, the subject line is an afterthought. To dramatically increase the effectiveness of your email campaign you need to do the exact opposite. 80% of the time should be spent on the subject line because if nobody opens it, it doesn’t matter how amazing the email is.

Author Bio

5x #1 Bestselling Author and Keynote Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in over 55 countries and reached 50 million people. He was voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling. He is the host of the popular Super U Podcast and his work has been used by the National Guard to NBCUniversal to NASA. You can contact him on LinkedIn.

#17 Tuhin Banik

Here are my views on the email marketing strategies for B2B business. Email marketing is undoubtedly the best possible way-out for B2B businesses, Moreover, it’s all about the quality of the content you deliver to your audience.

If you want to generate leads for your B2B business you can pick email marketing to get instant results as it has many advantages, including ease of implementation and being cost-effective.

Looking over the last year’s stats for B2B email marketing statistics, the below digits says it all that how effective an email marketing campaign can be:

· 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute content.
· 73% of millennials prefer communication from businesses to come via email.
· More than 59% of B2B marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI.
Strategies You Can Focus On:
· An email drip campaign is a valuable long-term lead nurturing strategy.
· Leverage B2B Email Lead Generation software
· By tailoring your email messages according to your prospects profiles and behaviors, you increase the potential for engagement.

Author Bio

Contact him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

About Author

A passionate and innovative professional encompassing excellence in B2B marketing industry. Develop and manage integrated programs including content strategy, Lead generation approach, Digital, and social media strategy.
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