“Does email marketing really work for B2B? We already have a company newsletter. Isn’t that enough?”
This is a common question our clients have when we first connect.
While it is true that B2B email marketing can certainly include a standard ‘e-news’ component, relying only on this type of emailmarketing alone won’t do the trick for your manufacturing or B2B firm in today’s competitive landscape.
To fully optimize the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, you need a different strategy for your manufacturing or B2B venture.
In this blog, we have outlined some results-driven email marketing strategies for your B2B or manufacturing business.
Email Targeting:
In the B2B landscape, the buying process is much more complext than B2C and usually involves various individuals across different roles within a company.
When identifying a B2B target, you’re essentially pinpointing a group of targets. Therefore, your B2B online marketing should address the diverse needs and interests of multiple contacts within any given organization.
Unlike B2C scenarios where consumers decide based on personal preferences, B2B purchases involve multiple stakeholders in different departments.
A construction firm buying switchgear may have project managers, engineers, and procurement officers involved. Each stakeholder has distinct priorities; thus, the manufacturer’s B2B email strategy must cater to each group. Project managers may focus on reliability, engineers on technical details, and procurement officers on cost-effectiveness. Customized content for each stakeholder improves the effectiveness of B2B email marketing.
It all boils down to this key mantra—tailor your email content to resonate with different individuals with unique goals and concerns within the same target company.
To do this requires carefully crafting personalized messaging targeted to the different preferences of various stakeholders.
Set Your Tone:
Your tone matters a lot in your marketing.
In this context, you need to consider people who will read your emails.
The tone should match the person you’re talking to and how much they know about your brand and products at each step in their journey.
A formal, corporate tone that sounds like you’re speaking ‘company to company’ is often considered a safe play by many manufacturers for B2B marketing messaging. This couldn’t be further from the truth!
At the end of the day, companies don’t read emails – individual people do! Therefore, the most effective emails speak ‘human to human’ in a conversational style.
Watch out for any ‘insider’ lingo or too many technical terms. Instead, keep things simple so that your audience can understand your message.
However, you also need to make sure that your core message doesn’t get lost in a sea of cute words or over the top creativity.
Consider Your Customer Journey:
Plan your B2B email campaign in stages representing the steps of your customer journey, from initial awareness about your brand to considering a purchase decision and everything in between. Here is one example of a customer journey segmentation:
Awareness:
This is when customers first become aware of your brand, product, or service. At this stage, your only goal is to build trust via educational content such as how-to guides and thought leadership pieces.
Consideration:
This is the stage where customers begin assessing their options and comparing your brand to your competitors. Maybe they are comparing different services or products to identify the right one. In this stage, case studies and product demos can deepen interest and understanding.
Decision:
Once customers have narrowed down their options, they are poised to make a decision about which product or service to purchase. This may involve weighing factors like price, features, and customer reviews. At this point, offering free trials, cost calculators and side-by-side comparisonscan help nudge them towards purchasing your offerings.
Wow & Delight:
After a customer makes abuying decision, your marketing job has just begun! This is a crucial time where your brand can exceed their expectations and surprise them with overdelivery of your brand promises. This stage is when your customer can either feel relieved they chose your brand OR wonder if the competition wouldn’t have been a better choice. Keep customers engaged with tutorials and educational material to ensure their success so they can maximize product value.
Raving Fan Advocacy:
If you have successfully delighted your customers and built a solid loyalty position in their minds, they will talk positively about your brand to other potential customers. They can essentially become an outside sales force recommending your products or services to their peers, helping your market position expand beyond what you could achieve on your own.
But how can you possibly know which stage any individual customer is at? The answer is:
Segmentation:
To tailor your email campaigns effectively, you must use what’s called “segmentation”.
In email segmentation, you divide your email list into smaller or targeted groups known as segments.
Segments can be based on various data points, such as the subscriber’s engagement level, position in the sales funnel, or demographic information.
Segmentation helps you send highly relevant content to each recipient, whether it is to send how-to guides to someone in the awareness stage or free trials to someone in the decision-making stage.
Create Compelling Content:
Once your segments have been identified, the next critical step is to create content specific and relevant for each segment.
Content is the heart and soul of your email.
It is equally important to make it compelling and digestible. Good content guides the readers in making decisions.
To ensure your emails catch their attention, focus on two things:
First, tailor your content to different stages of their buying journey.
For example, you can send case studies, educational webinars, industry reports, or product updates. Providing valuable content shows your commitment to their success and keeps them engaged.
Second, pay attention to your subject lines. They are the first thing recipients see and can make or break whether they open your email.
Use action words, ask intriguing questions, offer exclusive insights, or create a sense of urgency. And in certain situations the tasteful use of emojis can boost your open rate significantly.
Keep subject lines concise and professional, avoiding excessive punctuation and capitalization. Remember to A/B test different subject lines to see what works best for your audience.
Use the Right CTA Button:
What’s the purpose of your email? Do you want to inform users of a new product update? Do you want to talk about a new product launch? Or is it about upcoming events or the latest offers?
Whatever your aim is, make sure to have a strategically placed call to action or CTA button to get subscribers to do what you want.
Test and Track Your Campaigns:
Keep in mind that your email marketing campaign is not something you can just “set and forget”. It is important to test, track, and adapt continually. It will let you know what your campaign may be lacking or how to make it more effective.
Once the email campaigns are launched, keep track of key metrics like open rate, CTR, subscription, and subscription rate. It helps you get important insights into your campaign’s performance.
One easy way to do this is to perform A/B testing. In A/B testing, you compare the results of two variations of the same thing such as subject lines, sender names, and CTA buttons.
Tailor your content, design, and messaging based on what your audience responds to best.
Over to You….
So that’s an overview of what you need to create a successful B2B marketing campaign. The key parts of your campaign are to identify your target audience, segment them, and create your content around them.
Don’t forget to test and track your campaign to get important insights and learn key areas of improvement.
If B2B email marketing is not your forte, the marketing experts atZafariare happy to coach you into becoming an email marketing rockstar!
We have helped many manufacturers and B2B firms launch very successful email marketing campaigns. Schedule a FREE STRATEGY CALL now!
