Marketing by email became an in-demand promotional tool long ago, and even though new solutions appear every day, it is still quite efficient. This is proved by the fact that there are more than 4 billion email users worldwide; thus, it is definitely possible to find your target audience through this channel. However, there are a few peculiarities you need to consider for building a cost-effective email marketing plan. In this article, we’ll highlight the main aspects of any successful email marketing campaign and provide you with expert tips from Digitalce specialists.
As the definition of email marketing says, this is the form of promotion that lets businesses make customers aware of new products, services or offers via email. Targeted campaigns through this channel have proved to be extremely efficient, as the average ROI of email marketing was $36 for every $1 spent in 2022. Let’s consider the main benefits of email marketing for your business and what you can do by using this promotional channel.
As the study states, 79% of specialists list email marketing among their top 3 most effective channels. In this section, we’ll find out how companies apply various types of marketing emails to stand out from the competition.
The first and most important thing to know is that there isn’t a universal solution — the way your promotional campaign works completely depends on your goal. This includes everything from the types of content you share to platforms you use to collect subscription bases. There can be a few main types of marketing objectives: to raise brand awareness, to sell a particular product, to promote collaboration with a service company, to drive more website visitors, etc.
When brands want to reach particular goals, they need to find the right audience who will receive their emails. There are a few ways to do so:
Now that you know the importance of email marketing and how it works, it’s time to consider the peculiarities of this type of promotion specifically for different industries. Continue reading, to discover email marketing tips for B2B companies.
According to Chief Marketer, 50% of respondents state that email marketing produces B2B leads with the highest ROI. But how to reach this impressive result? Besides the fact that everything depends on the goal, there are still several principles on how to optimize your campaigns.
Starting with, what is email marketing for B2B? It’s a great way to get in touch with your potential clients, tell them more about your company and guide them through the sales funnel. One of the main benefits of email marketing for B2B is that it’s the business’s owned channel. Thus, you are not limited by any regulations, except for requirements to avoid spam filters.
To build trust with potential clients, you need to start any email campaign by introducing your company. You don’t need to be sales from the very beginning, it’s better to provide general information about the business and how collaboration with you can help potential clients. It’s a good idea to share cases, testimonials and success stories in the next emails.
One more way to increase the effectiveness of business-to-business marketing email is to combine it with other promotional channels. For instance, you can reach out to customers through email, then catch them with targeted ads on LinkedIn or context advertising and, later on, send a follow-up. Of course, it’s better to focus on warm leads in your campaigns, but if you want to create the base manually and send emails to cold ones, it’s also still possible.
Speaking about this type of promotion, you cannot apply email marketing for startups once you only start your company. The reason is simple: the most effective technique for startups is to tell more about the company and build trust with the audience. However, if you don’t have a value proposition and strong positioning, you cannot clearly explain to customers who you are. A prestigious website is also necessary, as only by providing a link to it, you can build a reputation of a trustworthy company.
The most effective email marketing strategy examples for startups are quite similar to the ones for the B2B sphere. Although, in this case, you need to research and test more. This is because big companies already know a lot about their audience, while startups need to constantly optimize their promotion. This will allow such companies to save costs and improve the effectiveness of their targeted email marketing.
There are no email marketing guides for e-commerce, as each case is unique. However, 85.7% of marketers state that their primary objective is increasing brand awareness. Thus, such companies need to get in touch with customers quite often.
The other way to apply email marketing for e-commerce is to drive sales through this channel. You can notify customers about discounts, new products and special offers. Also, you can connect with existing clients to use opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. One of the best email marketing examples is using this channel to reach out to customers who added goods to shopping carts but haven’t purchased them. In this case, you can email them with a promo code to convert them into buyers.
Another recommendation from our experts is to combine email marketing for e-commerce with social media promotion. This way, you reach out to customers more often and build a reputation of a trustworthy brand. Nevertheless, there isn’t a definite frequency of sending, as the more products you offer, the more emails you can write to your customers.
The approach to marketing in this industry is quite similar to B2B email marketing. However, there are still a few differences.
For IT companies, it is essential to clarify their positioning and what products or services they provide. You can write the initial email about your brand in general and then launch an email newsletters marketing campaign to educate potential buyers about your offers. Your content needs to be valuable but still should align with the main goal — to convert customers into clients.
Who to send your emails to? As IT companies usually work in the B2B niche, the answer to this question highly depends on the size of the businesses you want to collaborate with. If you provide technical solutions to streamline workflow, it’s reasonable to get in touch with a CTO. On the other hand, if you’re going to optimize their communication with clients, it’s better to communicate with the customer experience department.
Now you know the main peculiarities of email marketing types for different industries. Let’s further discover how to launch an effective email promotional campaign.
As we’ve already mentioned, email marketing can help you reach potential customers at any stage of the sales funnel. In this section, we’ll provide some tips on how to create marketing emails that will drive conversions and boost your revenue.
Email marketing is not only about selling. You can use this channel to raise brand awareness, improve reputation, drive engagement, or nurture leads. Think about what you want to reach after launching an email marketing campaign, as this will influence all future steps. Finally, you can simply think about what your call to action will look like and this will be the objective.
The next essential step is to identify who you are going to communicate with. You need to know your audience’s needs and preferences, as well as pain points and the ways your company can solve them. Once you have a clear understanding of who your potential clients are, you can identify what tone of voice will convince them better. Thus, you’ll sound more persuasive in your emails.
One more important thing is to segment your customers according to specific distinctive features. For example, location, age, position in the company they are working in, etc. may play a vital role in fruitful communication. Consequently, if you send personalized emails to each group, you will be able to convert them better.
We’ve already stated above that there may be different ways to collect contacts of people who will receive your emails. In case you are going to send regular updates to subscribed customers, you need to consider suitable signup sources. Any social media platform that leads to a landing page or website form can be useful for it. You just need to figure out where your target audience is more likely to subscribe.
On the other hand, sometimes you need to find a very specific group of leads. Many B2B companies can search for them manually by using LinkedIn, FindThatLead, Crunchbase, and other tools and channels. In this case, you should definitely know who you are searching for and how you can solve their problems.
The next step is to understand what kind of content you are ready to share with your contacts. The right approach will allow you to reduce an unsubscribe rate and establish trustworthy relationships with potential clients. Here are a few of the most popular types of content that marketers use for email campaigns:
The easiest way to launch a marketing campaign is to write sales emails that promote specific products. But in practice, it is better to add valuable information that is somehow useful for your clients. You can also share educational content if your company is ready to invest in this initiative.
The next step is to establish how often you need to send your emails. Usually, B2B companies get in touch with their consumers every 2–3 days and then increase this gap. For example, you can have a chain like “3–3–3–7–7–30–30”. Also, it’s vital to empower this campaign with follow-ups on LinkedIn or any other channel your audience uses actively.
Speaking about B2C, companies can send updates a bit more often. However, there are plenty of examples of email marketing campaigns that failed because of the frequency. You shouldn’t be too annoying — just notify your customers about something new when you really have what to say.
This is the last but not least step in building a marketing campaign. Remember that you can and should conduct A/B tests, try new approaches and optimize existing emails. Additionally, you can try to reach new markets and enhance your emails according to the requirements of each segment of the target audience.
You’re almost ready to launch an email campaign. However, there are a few more things you need to pay attention to. In this section, we’ll share expert tips from Digitalce professionals on how to make your email marketing even more effective.
There are many tips on how to reach customers better and not get into a spam folder. There are a few ones our Digitalce marketers use regularly:
While email deliverability depends more on your technical skills and knowledge, open rates are more about how you understand the psychology of your customers. There are a few tips you need to consider while setting up a campaign.
Congrats, now you know the answer to the question ‘How effective is email marketing?’ You can create campaigns that perfectly suit your niche and help convert quality leads into clients. Also, you are aware of how to optimize your promotion through this channel to improve deliverability and open rates. Get in touch with Digitalce experts to empower your email marketing and make it even more effective.
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