Of all the strategies used in inbound marketing, e-mailing remains one of the most effective for expanding your customer database. However, every day, hundreds of emails go straight to the spam graveyard and remain unread. So, if you want to launch a successful B2B emailing campaign, there are 3 major challenges: 1 – get your prospect to receive your emails. 2 – succeed in making them read. 3 – successfully push your prospect to respond to your Call to Action. But how do we do all this? Here’s a practice guide of 11 tips to improve the performance of your next email campaign.
What is e-mailing?
Known by all large companies, e-mailing simply consists in sending emails to targeted prospects or customers. It is a direct marketing technique that can be used for prospecting, lead conversion, customer loyalty, information distribution to an audience, etc. Thus, email marketing can take the form of :
- commercial email, to encourage purchases;
- the newsletter, for loyalty;
- transactional email, sent to a specific recipient after an interaction;
- email retargeting, intended for the revival of customers in the process of conversion for the completion of the conversion started;
- marketing automation or automated email which is composed of a series of emails to be sent at various times according to a defined communication scenario based on behavioral data.
What are the advantages of B2B e-mail marketing?
Effective when you know how to do it, this old-fashioned inbound marketing strategy offers unique and undeniable advantages to the company that deploys it. Indeed, it is a simple and economical technique. To launch a B2B email campaign, you don’t need to be a genius and have extensive programming knowledge.
It is also one of the most economical marketing techniques. It costs much less than a Google Ads campaign for example. Moreover, the possibility of automation and adaptation to the evolution of internet trends makes B2B email campaigns a very practical solution with great promises of profitability.
It is especially interesting to note that email campaigns force companies to be more interested in their customers and their specificities. This customer analysis contributes to a good knowledge of the customers. This makes it possible to send targeted and personalized messages that will reach the recipient at any time, wherever they are.
The non-intrusive nature of e-mails is also a big advantage, since the recipient does not feel disturbed or harassed as can be the case with a phone call. This means that the client can choose to open and decide when to do so, which improves the chances of a successful campaign.
For the company, email marketing is also an opportunity to strengthen its brand image. All you need to do is to be creative in the design of the emails to be sent. Then, optimize the display quality (responsive design) of emails on the various terminals (smartphone, tablet or PC).
11 tips to improve the performance of your B2B email campaigns
1. Continuously update your contact database
A successful e-mailing campaign starts with updating your address list. A good mailing list is composed of well-targeted people who have some interest in reading your emails. You must avoid that your successive emails remain unopened in inboxes of recipients who do not care about your company.
It is possible that you have rented and imported an address file into your e-mailing software. In this case, it is possible that several hundred of your messages remain unanswered, since you may have sent emails to addresses that have nothing to do with the recipient profile you were supposed to target.
In addition, every year, approximately 30% of the information in the contact databases is no longer accurate. Imagine a client who has left their position in their company, changed industries, passed away, etc. From now on, all the emails you send to him will not be opened.
Clearly, it is of great importance for marketers to continuously update and segment mailing lists for ever more refined targeting.
2. Make it clear to your recipient who you are
In marketing, the question of identity (the name of the sender) is a major issue, since it determines the reaction of your recipient to your email. The latter decides, in a few milliseconds, if it should open your mail or not. In this short period of time, it judges you and the importance of opening the email.
Clearly, the choice of sender name is fundamental to the success of the campaign. Depending on the sector and the level of advancement of the recipient in the conversion tunnel, you can put forward a personal identity or the identity of your company. In some sectors, for example, the sender’s name is composed of the sender’s first name and the name of his company.
With a sender name like “Alain Tesla”, it is easy to become aware that the sender’s name is Alain and that the email comes from the Tesla company. It is important to find a formula to clearly identify yourself. In a few milliseconds, your recipient must know that he is dealing with a legitimate interlocutor, otherwise, he may never open the email.
3. Create an object that makes people want to click
The name of the sender is not enough. Is the content of the email really important? This is one of the main questions your recipients usually ask. The answer to this question can either help to open or close your email. To do this, the subject line of your email must be optimized so as to make people want to click on the email. Everything is done in a few milliseconds. A good object can be in the form of :
- A rhetorical question admitting a YES as an answer;
- The promise of a cure for a suffering ;
- Words that evoke strong emotions.
4. Optimize your pre-header
The pre-header of your email represents the third lever you can use to encourage your recipient to open your email. This portion of a generic sentence usually placed after the subject line can make your email more persuasive and improve your open rate. However, it will need to be customized. You will find the formula that best suits your industry, your niche and each customer segment.
5. Find an effective design
Before looking at the content of your email, your target will not need more than two seconds to form an impression of your email. The design, template and visual quality of your template will determine your ability to reach your conversion goals.
The principle is to find a good balance between the visual aspect and the textual aspect of your email. It should not be overloaded. For example, if you want to encourage people to buy something, you should keep it simple and add a photo to your signature.
6. Create personalized emails
Experience has shown that standard messages sent to the masses are not very effective. For more impact, personalization is a must. It satisfies the human need to feel important and thus improves the chances of conversion.
In concrete terms, this means adding the first name of your recipient at the beginning of the message and recalling your last interaction with the recipient according to your discussion history. By personalizing your messages in this way, you’ll make them more likely to take the time to look at what you want to tell them. He thus progresses towards the discovery of the message.
7. Add a call-to-action to your emails
What is the purpose of a B2B email campaign, if not to expand the customer base and increase sales figures? The objective can only be achieved if you tell your recipient, in clear, precise and concise language, what you want them to do after reading the email. This is known as call-to-action or incentive to action.
To be effective, this call to action must be preceded by an enumeration and description of the benefits that the recipient will enjoy if he or she performs the recommended action.
It will highlight the problem and how it affects the other person, their activities, results, goals, etc. Then, after touching those pain points, present the solution to him or her, stating how it will resolve the pain points.
Share testimonials from people who have tried the solution and were very satisfied with it. Finally, offer to click on the call-to-action, making sure that the call-to-action is really visible and easy to find, to avoid having done all that work in vain.
8. Optimize the landing page of your e-mail campaign
That your subscriber clicks on the call-to-action is not enough for your e-mail campaign to succeed. Indeed, the click will direct them to your landing page, which is one of the fundamental elements of conversion.
For the success of the campaign, this page must be properly optimized. Find all possible ways to optimize. Make the landing page intuitive. Also make sure that its display is compatible with all screen formats (smartphones, tablets, PC). Don’t forget to integrate your visual identity into the landing page and the entire site to reinforce your brand image.
9. Verify the performance of your campaign on various media
Considering that the vast majority of your readers will access your emails from mobile devices, you will have to make sure that your email and landing page offer a perfect readability on all screen formats. No message should be unreadable. The call to action must not be hidden.
To be sure, check the rendering of your email from the email editor. For example, you can check if the email would still be readable by subscribers using the dark mode and find a way to make the reading experience as pleasant in light mode as in dark mode.
10. Find the right timing for the mailing
The right email received at the right time is the perfect combo for a successful email campaign. The key here is to find the moment when your B2B contact is most willing to check his or her email box and open your email.
On weekends, for example, your email may not be opened. There is no absolute formula in this matter. It all depends on the sector of activity and the profile of the recipient. Don’t hesitate to change your sending hours if the reports of your campaigns inspire you to do so.
11. Study the reports of each email campaign
Each campaign is an experiment whose results can help you improve future campaigns. After each campaign, retrieve performance reports and review them. Analyze the strengths of your strategy and consider where improvements could optimize the performance of your next campaign.
But the question is this. What are the elements to analyze to know the effectiveness of your strategy? You must analyze:
- The bounce rate: the ratio between the number of emails delivered and sent. If it is too high, check the quality of your mailing list. Make sure the addresses really exist.
- The open rate: the ratio between the number of opened and sent emails. If it is too low, improve your sender name, subject line and pre-header.
- The click rate: the ratio between the number of emails with a clicked link and the emails sent. If it is too high, improve the design and content of the email and the visibility of the call-to-action.
- Unsubscribe rate: the ratio between the number of unsubscribes and the number of recipients. If it is too high, review the frequency of your mailings.
Analyze all the elements of the B2B email campaign report and take action to improve your next campaign.
