“It’s fascinating how the fundamentals of business-to-business marketing are the same today as they were 50 years ago. It’s still about relationships although today we have new tools and techniques at our disposal.” ~ David Meerman Scott
The key word here is “relationships”. While B2B is the exchange of services between businesses, you are still selling to people who you have to create relationships with. In each transaction, there is a person that makes the decision to purchase. It is important to keep this in mind when doing any B2B marketing, especially email marketing.
So, with relationships in mind, let’s take a look at a few B2B tips.
Subject Line
The subject of your email is the first impression you make on the recipient. Whether or not your email is opened pivots on the subject line’s ability to catch interest. It is simple: if your email piques a recipient’s interest they will open it. If not, then they won’t. Make a creative subject line that clearly states an incentive to open up the email, as well as what they can expect when they do open it up. Make sure that the subject and the content within the email match. If there is any dissonance, then the prospect’s trust in your company will crumble.
Content/Design
If you can get the recipient to open the B2B email, then now is the time to tell them what you are all about. While there are many reasons to have an email campaign, most likely you are trying to get them to visit your website – more on that later.
In order to do this, the content within the email must give them a reason to click a link to your site. Maybe an interesting blog, or a new promotion? Whatever it is, you have to give them enough information to pique their interest, but hold back enough information to keep them wanting.
As for design, it is like any other design you do for your business. It needs to catch their attention, be pleasing to look at, match your brand, etc. The difference here is the way you code the email. There is no generally accepted standard for the way email clients read code, so when you’re designing your emails with HTML, be careful. Use tools like Premailer to preflight your email code.
Landing Page
The landing page is where prospects turn into customers. If you created enough interest to get the recipient to visit your site, keep the momentum going by having a quality landing page. This does not have to be a page specifically designed as an email send landing page (although it can be), but there are some elements that this page should have. The most important aspect of the page is a call-to-action. Have a way for the prospect to contact you, request more info, or get a quote. However you go about it, make sure they have a next step to take once they get to your landing page, or all of your work is for naught.
At the end of the day, the best way to maximize your email send effectiveness will vary from company to company. You can find what works for you and your email list by tracking open rates, clicks, etc. Figure out where your prospects are getting stuck, and optimize those points.
This may sound like a lot of work, and to be honest, it does take time and effort. Consider partnering with experts to take care of this for you, and focus on where your expertise lies. As an email marketing company in Frederick, Maryland, New North can run and optimize your email campaigns to help build your business. Your next client could be on your email database. Contact New North for more information.
