There’s nothing like a promising email campaign to liven up a marketing plan. Unfortunately, many B2B companies overlook email in favor of flashier campaigns that produce less ROI. And that’s quite a shame, because email marketing does so much good for B2B companies, as you’ll soon find out.
Let’s Cut Right to the Chase: Here’s Why B2B Email Marketing Rocks
Email Marketing Helps B2B Companies Maintain Relationships
Excellent customer care is everything, and that’s just as true for B2B clients as B2C ones. But like watering a beautiful garden, relationships take time and effort to flourish. Make a point of staying in close contact with fellow companies via email to cement yourself in their eyes as hardworking, loyal, and trustworthy. Through it all, remain open to questions and continuing the conversation. After all, B2B relationships aren’t what you’d call “one and done” scenarios; they can last for months or even years at a time.
Email Marketing Keeps Fellow Companies in the Know
What better way to keep B2B companies up to date than with an informative email campaign? Whether you’re breaking the news on a product change, recall, or event, a succinct e-newsletter or even the SparkNotes version of what’s new in your field is a way to show fellow companies they’re important and deserve to stay in the loop.
B2B Email Marketing Best Practices
Speed round this time! Here are some of our favorite B2B email best practices. For more info on each of the following, check out the links provided.
- Master those subject lines. Personalization, lists, and a limited character count are all key to great subject lines that boost open rates.
- Follow up with clients. Follow-ups such as abandoned cart emails and client surveys are vital to a killer B2B email marketing strategy. Just be sure not to spam your client; you don’t want to become known as “that” company!
- Don’t settle for mediocrity. Speaking of spam, if your business partners sense that you’re just sending out emails to fill a quota, they sure as heck aren’t going to open them. In B2B marketing, great email content can be anything from addressing the top FAQs to interviewing an SME. After all, if you’re not buzzing with excitement about the content you’re sending out, your customers certainly won’t be.
B2B Email Benchmarks
The best way to measure email success is with objective, quantitative data—i.e., numbers and figures. Here are some of the most critical B2B email marketing benchmarks.
Open Rate
Open rates for B2B companies clock in somewhere around 15%, slightly below the average 19% for B2C companies. But hey, 15% is still substantial!
Click-Through Rate
Of those opened emails, B2B companies get around 30% more click-through rates than B2C ones. In other words, B2B companies have a habit of actually diving deeper and interacting with brands. And the more you keep fellow companies engaged, the deeper the relationships you’ll build and the more sales you’ll see.
Conversion Rate
Open rates and click-through rates are hugely important, don’t get us wrong, but conversion rates are where the money’s at. Literally. They’re the difference between a B2B company simply perusing your site and making a transaction. The average conversion rate is a mere 2.25-2.5%, but if you’re dedicated to email marketing techniques such as powerful subject lines, personalization, and clear calls to action, your conversion rate could hit 5, 6, or even 7%.
How to Build a B2B Email Marketing List
We could wax poetic about how to build your email marketing list (in fact, we already have), but we’ll spare you this time around. That being said, here are a couple of our favorite ways to build B2B email lists from the ground up.
Create Commanding Calls to Action
Remember those conversion rates we talked about earlier? One of the best ways to see those spikes is by creating clear, persuasive calls to action. The CTAs that work best for B2C companies aren’t necessarily the ones that drive leads for B2B ones, so conduct plenty of A/B testing to see which ones are most effective. When in doubt, opt for CTAs with strong command verbs.
Hint: B2B transactions are between companies, yes, but there are human beings behind every opened email. Knowing that, maintain that same sense of enthusiasm and give your audience a reason to care just the way you would with B2C marketing!
Host a Virtual Event
In the COVID-19 reality of Zoom meetings and virtual hangouts, none of us are strangers to online events anymore. A good-ole Q&A session during one of these is ideal for B2B companies who need products explained in detail or who could otherwise use some persuading. And there’s nothing like a bit of face-to-face (well, you know what we mean) interaction to maintain that personal touch and keep businesses connected.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Overlook B2B Email Marketing in 2021
From email marketing best practices to building your email list, we know the ins and outs of B2B email campaigning like the backs of our own hands. Come chat with us and discover that for yourself! You’ll be glad you did.