Effective B2B Email Marketing in 2023
B2B marketing strategies are going through significant changes. What may have been the traditional course of action in the 2010s is becoming completely outdated in the 2020s. B2B marketers are turning to B2C tactics and adapting them to suit the B2B realm.
When it comes to email marketing for B2B companies, strategies vary tremendously. Some marketing experts focus on personalization while others rethink their entire approach to content. All these new tactics can be effective only if you keep the potential customer’s goals in mind.
In 2023, B2B marketers are shifting the focus from quantity to quality. With ABM (account-based marketing) under their belts, these experts are rethinking all of their marketing strategies, including email marketing.
Let’s take a closer look at effective B2B email marketing strategies every business should consider this year.
What is B2B Email Marketing?
B2B or Business-to-Business email marketing is a type of email marketing strategy that involves creating a specific email campaign to achieve B2B marketing goals. Be it generating leads, increasing brand awareness, or retaining clients, a B2B marketing campaign is aimed at businesses rather than individuals.
While B2B marketing strategies are similar to B2C (business to consumer) marketing tactics, many differences exist. Understanding these differences is the key to successful B2B email marketing in 2023 and beyond.
B2C email marketing strategies often focus on an emotional connection with the consumer. Different tactics are used to convince a consumer to make a purchase. A relationship with a B2B client is usually based on logic and mutual benefit.
When working with another company, it’s imperative to identify the logic behind the purchasing decision. Once you figure it out, you can base your email campaign on appealing to this logic.
The key to B2B email marketing is to focus on the potential client’s success.
How Effective is B2B Email Marketing?
While B2B email marketing is different from B2C email marketing, it’s still highly effective. If you choose the right email marketing strategy, you can expect a fairly high return on investment (ROI).
- 77% of B2B companies use email marketing newsletter as a key part of their content marketing plan. (Content Marketing Institute).
- 79% of B2B companies report that email is their most successful channel for distributing content.
- The potential ROI of B2B email marketing is 4400% (Campaign Monitor)
- Segmented B2B email campaigns can generate 760% more revenue than non-segmented campaigns (Campaign Monitor).
- Out of all generations, Millennials spend the most time checking emails (Adobe).
- Email automation campaigns are among the top tactics used by marketers to improve performance (HubSpot).
Overall, the right approach to B2B email marketing can streamline your entire marketing campaign and boost its ROI tremendously. However, not all B2B marketers are ready to implement an effective email marketing strategy into their campaigns.
The following email marketing tips can help you adjust your email marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition in 2023 and beyond.
1. Focus on Your Client
While this may sound like an obvious tactic, many B2B marketers overlook it. When it comes to B2C marketing, focusing on a client seems easy. You create a buyer persona, segment your audience according to preferences and demographics, and design a campaign to target each group.
In B2B email marketing, you have to address a decision-maker, not an individual. While individuals are prone to whims and fast decisions, company decision-makers carry a much bigger responsibility.
You can expect them to take time to make the final purchase decision. Many of them are likely to refuse your offer because of the smallest marketing mistakes.
Depending on how many potential customers you are working with, you may want to consider focusing on each decision-maker separately. Adding some personalization to each pitch could take you closer to the effect made by B2C marketing tactics.
Make sure your B2B email marketing strategy targets the person, not just the company. This way you can appeal to the customer at two key angles.
2. Improve Your Email Subject Line
An average office worker receives 121 emails per day. Decision-makers get even more. Skimming through these messages can be time-consuming. The sheer volume increases the chances of your email to end up in the spam folder. The only way to catch the recipient’s attention and give your email a chance is to create a high-quality subject line.
With fierce competition in every B2B sector, it can be hard to come up with something truly unique. Whatever you do, chances are someone has done it before. However, it doesn’t mean you should give up on the subject line entirely.
In 2023, the best way to create a truly catchy subject line is to:
- Make it concise and informative
- Capitalize on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) subtly
- Add a touch of personalization
Make sure to check the list of spam triggering words and never use them in subject lines. Some of these words may seem ordinary. However, they trigger the spam filter all the same. Keep these words in mind at all times.
3. Keep Your Email List Clean
Long gone are the days when B2B marketers were ready to build an email list using black hat methods. While buying email lists isn’t popular any longer, many B2B marketers still face invalid addresses on their lists.
As a result, they can’t support a high-quality marketing campaign, decrease email marketing ROI, and lose an opportunity to target audiences with high conversion potential.
Invalid email addresses can appear on your email list for several reasons, including
- A person changed the email address
- A decision-maker left the company
- Either you or the recipient made a typo when entering the address
To make sure your email list is clean, it’s imperative to check it regularly. Various validation tools are currently available both online and offline to make the process easier. While you can check the list manually, the task is time-consuming and not always accurate.
Ideally, you should check your email list with an email validator at least once every three months.
4. Emphasize Lead Nurturing
B2B marketers face a longer sales cycle than their B2C colleagues do. A lead needs to understand the importance of using your solution to address its pain points. Since the decision to take advantage of a certain product or service may need to be made by several people, the buyer’s journey is significantly longer.
That’s why it’s imperative to pay special attention to lead nurturing. Taking each lead through the steps of the sales cycle carefully, answering their questions, providing relevant content, and making the right offers at the right time can help businesses improve the conversion rates.
Email marketing is highly useful for lead nurturing. While it offers a direct communication line to the potential customer, it nurtures the lead smoothly without pushing it to make a decision. Corporate decision-makers tend to trust email more than they do other channels like social media.
If you manage to make a strong lead nurturing system a part of your B2B email marketing campaign, you can develop a close relationship with each potential client. In the future, this relationship can transform into much-needed brand loyalty.
Content marketing is a big part of lead nurturing. Use email as a channel to share the existing content with the target audience in an interesting yet concise manner.
5. Be Direct
With personalization becoming an integral part of B2B email marketing campaigns, marketers struggle to demonstrate uniqueness. One of the best ways to catch the attention of your potential clients with a personalized email is to be as direct as possible.
When drafting your B2B email marketing campaign, add a more direct approach to B2B emails. Aim your story, offer, and pitch at a particular customer rather than large segments of your audience.
C-level professionals appreciate a direct approach. To appeal to your prospects, the email content doesn’t just need to carry value, it must be firm, solid, and to the point. When studying your target audience, pick the decision-makers with the highest potential. Give them a concise solution to their problem and create a transparent call to action.
When it comes to B2B email marketing, your goal is to catch the decision-maker’s attention. These professionals are usually pressed for time. They don’t appreciate beating around the bush. Directness is the best way to keep them interested.
6. Work on Your Call to Action
One of the best practices for your B2B email marketing strategy is to stick to one call to action (CTA). When working with decision-makers who only have a limited amount of time to read a marketing email, several CTAs can be confusing.
Be clear about what you want the reader to do after reading your email. Otherwise, you may not get any action at all, or worse, your message could end up in the spam folder.
While it’s tempting to stuff as much information as possible into your email, it’s counterproductive. Consider creating a template with one CTA only. It’s better to send out several emails with one CTA per message. Customers don’t need to wonder which CTA to click on first.
7. Don’t Forget Responsive Designs
Even the best B2B email marketing campaigns fail due to small issues like design errors. Whether you are creating a message for lead generation or sending a welcome email, the design must be fully available to the reader regardless of the tech they are using.
The majority of your potential customers are likely to be reading your email messages on their mobile phones. Mobile emails account for more than 45% of email opens. If your email doesn’t show up correctly on a mobile screen, it will get deleted within several seconds.
- Pay special attention to every image in your message and the way they show up on smartphones.
- The subject line should be under 60 characters to show up on a mobile screen in full.
- Use pre-header text to support your subject line.
- Keep the email copy as concise as possible so it looks good on the mobile screen.
- Put CTA in the center of the message so it’s easily discoverable
Before sending your email, make sure to test it across multiple devices. It must be easy to read whether the recipient is using a desktop computer or a small-screen smartphone.
8. Follow These B2B Email Marketing Examples
When you are creating B2B emails, you can follow these templates.
Welcome Email Example: “Hello! We are so happy you could join our family. To save you time, we collected the most important information about our company in this letter.”
Announcement Email Example: “Hey, there! Our new product designed specifically to address your (describe problem) here is here. Read on for more details.”
New Article Email Example: “Hey, Bill. These email marketing tips can help you achieve a 4400% ROI. Read on!”
Inactive User Email Example: “Hi, Mark. We’ve noticed that you haven’t used your account in a while. Let us know what we can do to help.”
When taking advantage of these B2B email marketing examples, make sure to keep personalization in mind. The more details you can add about the recipient, the more likely you are to catch the decision-makers attention.
9. Work on Lead Generation Tactics
Many B2B marketing experts don’t consider email marketing one of the best practices for lead generation.
However, lead generation through email is an excellent B2B email marketing strategy. You collect email addresses by using opt-in forms on your website. While this may seem like a less-than-perfect tactic for B2B companies, coupled with the right approach to SEO, it can yield excellent results.
The Takeaway
To improve your B2B email marketing campaign y in 2023, you need to pay special attention to personalization, email list cleaning, precise and concise content, and the urgent needs of your customers.
By implementing the latest email marketing ideas into your strategy, you can improve the campaign’s ROI and boost the company’s profitability. It’s important to remember that email marketing is far from dead. For many businesses, it’s a powerful weapon in any B
