There is so much on the internet that you and your company have to somehow break through all the noise. Some may think that B2B (business to business) is excluded from that. Nope, they are still consumers in a noisy, media-filled world - they just look a little different. When addressing a business, you have to play to the logical side of persuasion because they are looking to partner or use you to be more successful in their business - it’s a different relationship than the customer one.
We are going to look at why you should use email marketing in the first place, how to improve your emails, and how to stay organized. We will also address design considerations, inspiration, and how to measure the success you are inevitably going to see.
If you are looking for an even more in-depth email marketing guide, including B2C communication, try this.
According to HubSpot’s 2020 marketing statistics and Imagination,
From these statistics, we can see that email has been proven effective in B2B communication and persuasion. Why is email so valuable?
Email is…
Remember learning ethos, pathos, and logos when writing essays in grade school? These are forms of persuasion, and in email marketing you sure are trying to persuade. For B2C marketing you have to pull on the consumer’s heart strings (whether with humor, joy, sadness, or empathy). You should use ethos persuasion.
In comparison, in B2B marketing you are not trying to woo the business with emotion. Business to business communications are much more straightforward, backed with logic and facts. Here, you should use logos persuasion. This means logic - specific means to how they can achieve their business goals with you - should be your guiding force when trying to snag that partnership with a prospective business.
B2B takes much more time investment than B2C. With direct customers, it is like a relationship where you are trying to convince them you are the best choice - without coming on too strong - or they will get overwhelmed and break up with you. In B2B strategy, you should be sending constant emails to build a strong, memorable relationship with the potential client.
In B2C you are trying to sell something to your customer. In B2B you are trying to form a relationship of credibility with them. This means that your emails should be for the purpose of educating, not selling. Try starting by changing your “Shop Now” CTAs to “Learn More” CTAs.
Hey, we all love a good ‘ol conversation.
See what I did there? Using layman terms like a simple “hi” or “hey” can make it seem like the email is coming from a person to a company rather than two robots sending bits back and forth. Another very easy way to make things conversational is to use contractions. “Can’t” instead of “cannot,” “have” instead of “have not” and “would’ve” instead of “would have” can make all of the difference. The goal is to not sound like an automated email. People get enough in their inboxes these days that sounded automated can make you seem like a scammer (buy 5 now get 5 free! - don't be that guy).
Again, personalization can make the world of a difference when trying to sound conversational.
As fun as it is to chat up your good friend on the business side with your conversational tone and wit, it’s important to have a clear message. This does not necessarily mean your content has to be short. Don’t confuse conciseness with clarity. We love and promote a long content educational piece. We actually encourage it. Just make sure your content all comes to a nice end with a bow on top (and by bow we mean a CTA).
Personalization can come in many forms. One of the easiest ways is to lead with the customer, or business’ in this case, name. See here how the subject line says “Carly, this is what makes ATAQ different.” Immediately the customer is drawn to the email because they think it is personally addressed to them. This can also work for businesses, so the reader thinks it is related to their company internally (don’t want to miss something important from the CEO!).
Some subject line examples:
Notice how this email goes as far to refer to the customers name twice - once in the subject line, once in the email body. This just makes it more personalized and appealing to the customer. This is easy to customize and is a user-friendly feature in a number of email marketing automation tools, like HubSpot.
Don’t send unsolicited emails. Make sure your customer wants to see the email, or it will put a bad taste in their mouth at best, and go straight to the Junk Folder at worst. The thing with customers (remember you, the reader, is a customer too - so think about what you would want in your inbox that you would actually open and read). Although in today's age it is reasonable to assume people know that companies have data on them. You still don’t want them to know that. Don’t call them by their first name if they never submitted their first name, you know?
What Are Your Goals? It is important to have specific, measurable goals when starting email marketing campaigns. You don’t want to get unorganized or find yourself asking “what should we write??” every week. Goals help you make emails with a purpose.
Here, you can borrow some of our friends’ at SVM solutions.
Learn more about how goals can lead to results with this case study.
If you or a team member has taken any basic marketing course, you will know that customer targeting is a big piece of modern day marketing. In our data-driven world, it’s fairly easy to know a lot about customers. Your emails should be designed specifically for that business’s needs and what they should be learning. Educate on topics that matter to them.
Here is an example of how we at Electriq got information on our client’s customers so we could properly target them. It also allows for excellent personalization, which as we discussed before, is a crucial part of building relationships.
What is a lead? A lead is a potential customer or prospect. To take a lead and turn them into a sale, you have to nurture the relationship and take them on a journey to purchasing. This can be explored more in depth as The Buyer’s Journey.
Even though we discussed earlier how businesses should be persuaded in a more logical way than an emotion-based decision making customer, business still needs to be addressed with good design. In today’s world where anyone can craft professional design aesthetics using tools like HubSpot or Canva, even without Adobe InDesign (or another more traditional design-based tool) experience.
Here is some easy ways to improve your design aesthetic:
This all sounds great, right? You are ready to make the best B2B email marketing campaign ever - but don’t know where to start. We’ve got some inspiration for you.
Ideas for B2B Automated Emails:
There are tons of other ways to make B2B content marketing work for your business. If you want to dive deeper into content marketing, go here.
We've said over and over to track, analyze, and reassess your B2B email marketing. You are probably wondering, though, what do I track? These are some of the key statistics you should be monitoring on your campaigns.
https://vtldesign.com/digital-marketing/email-marketing/b2b-email-marketing-guide/
https://albacross.com/newsroom/b2b-email-marketing/
https://svmsolutions.com/resources/guides-and-toolkits/essential-guide-b2b-email-marketing/
https://www.leadforensics.com/email-marketing-guide-for-b2b-organizations/
https://www.imaginepub.com/b2b/23-things-you-didn-t-know-about-b2b-content-marketing
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2018-b2b-research-final.pdf