Email Marketing for a B2B Business and the Must-Have Tools

With so much attention given to social media marketing and other channels of digital marketing, it is easy to write off email marketing. But not so fast! Email marketing is still king. Time and time again, email marketing is the most effective form of marketing. In a B2B marketplace, it is even more important since so many professionals use email as their primary form of communication with other vendors and businesses.
Here is what you need to know to implement your own successful B2B email marketing campaign and the tools to make it possible.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is any type of electronic message communication that advertises your business, product, or service. It is both a form of direct marketing and digital marketing. It is often used as part of a larger internet marketing strategy to promote the business through email, websites, social media, and blogs.

Email marketing can take on many forms, including:

• Newsletters to subscribers
• Promotions regarding sales and upcoming events
• Exclusive deals and discounts
• Social sharing of information
  

Email marketing is used to generate leads, aid brand awareness, build relationships, and keep customers engaged. A successful email marketing strategy informs customers and includes marketing messages that are tailored to their target audience.

Why Email Marketing Is Important for B2B Purposes

Here are some of the reasons why email marketing is so important in the B2B realm:

Email Marketing Is Effective

Consider the following statistics regarding the effectiveness of email marketing:

• Email marketing has a 4200% return on investment, meaning that for every $1 spent, businesses can expect to get back $42.
• 47% of marketers rate email marketing as the most effective form of marketing.
• 21% of emails are opened within the first hour after delivery.
• Email is 40% more effective at converting than social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
• 40% of B2B marketers report that email newsletters are the most important part of their content marketing strategy.
  

Email Marketing Influences Action

One of the reasons why email marketing is so effective is because it relies on the user taking some kind of action. In contrast, video ads, text ads, or even social media marketing may not be interactive or use a call to action.
Marketing emails influence the buying decisions of 50.7% of consumers. Customers are more likely to see an email than a social media message.

Businesses Prefer Emails as Their Primary Form of Communication

Busy professionals prefer business emails over other forms of communication. Emails allow a person to open up communication when they are ready for it. They are not intrusive and do not demand a large time commitment. For these reasons, 72% of consumers prefer email as their main channel for business communication. Additionally, 52% of one survey’s respondents reported that email is their business’ main communication tool.

Everyone Else Is Using It

If for no other reason, you should consider doing email marketing because everybody else is doing it. As many as 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute content. If you fail to implement your own email marketing campaign, you risk losing out on business that someone else steals away.

Email Marketing Tools Necessary for Businesses

Several email marketing tools can make your email marketing campaigns more effective, including:

Reverse Email Lookup Tool

A reverse email lookup tool lets you confirm who owns an email address. This lets you make sure that you are sending your emails to the intended targets.

You can also use a reverse email lookup tool to confirm who has sent you an email to avoid spam messages or other unwanted messages.

Email Verification Tool

An email verification tool like Voila Norbert finds and verifies emails. It can automatically clean your email list for inaccurate email addresses so that your deliverable email statistics increase.

Design Templates

Many free and affordable templates can help create a sleek and professional look for your marketing messages.

Email Marketing Campaign Management Sites

There are tons of email marketing campaign management sites that provide everything from:
– Templates for email messages
– Newsletters
– Tracking tools to show you open rates, click rates, and other important metrics
– Automation features so that you can schedule your messages at times that have been proven to be effective

Email Newsletter

An email newsletter can be an important addition to your digital marketing strategy. Tools like Flashissue deliver email newsletters from a simple interface and allow you to sign in through Google or Facebook.

Integration Tools

When you integrate your email marketing account with other online services like Salesforce, you can better serve your clients’ needs. For example, with AWeber, you can show on your CRM platform which customers are subscribed to your AWeber emails and which emails they have received from you. AWeber also integrates with the most popular shopping cart tools and allows you to add new customers to your account with each purchase.

Mobile-Friendly Tool

Some email marketing tools allow you to automatically optimize your emails so that they can be easily read on a mobile device.

Predictive Tools

Crystal is a unique communication tool that predicts what a customer’s personality is like based on their online footprint. With this tool, you can gain more insight into your customer base and personalize your message.

What Does a Successful B2B Email Campaign Contain?

Just because you send an email out to your customer list does not mean your efforts will be successful. Email marketing should help you raise brand awareness, build and maintain a relationship with your customers, and drive traffic to designated spots on your website. An effective email marketing campaign should include:

• A call to action – Make it easy for your subscribers to know what you want, such as for them to call you for more information, request a free quote, or join a list.
• A schedule – You do not have to send your marketing message out five minutes after you thought about it. Instead, use automation to send messages when they are most likely to be opened. Sending periodic email newsletters on a certain day of the week or month will also give your subscribers something to look forward to.
• Compliance – Email marketing must adhere to the rules of the CAN-SPAM Act. This means every email marketing message must include a non-deceptive subject line, a clear way to unsubscribe, and your contact information.
• Personalization – With today’s tools, you can segment your email subscribers by their demographics, purchase history, or personality and then craft a different message for each group. This allows you to create more personalized messages that resonate with potential customers.

Gain Some Data and Analyze It for Better Results

Take advantage of all the important data key points that email marketing campaigns provide you, such as open rates, response rates, and conversion rates. Use this critical information to launch A/B tests to find out which marketing approaches work best and use them more often.

Conclusion

Email marketing is not going anywhere, so the faster you learn how to properly implement you, the better off you and your business will be. The tools mentioned above can help you take your email marketing efforts from normal to fantastic.

Emily Andrews

Emily Andrews is the marketing communications specialist at RecordsFinder, an online public records search company. Communications specialist by day and community volunteer at night, she believes in compassion and defending the defenseless.