The American stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle said that “modern problems require modern solutions”. It’s true! He’s not wrong!

But here’s the thing…

Marketing is all about staying ahead of your competitors and keeping up with the trends. However, this doesn’t mean that you should give up on effective marketing strategies simply because you think that they’re outdated.

In recent years, you would’ve noticed that marketers are highly focused on conducting webinars, video marketing campaigns, and looking for other new opportunities to reach their customers. 

This, however, shouldn’t distract from one of the oldest, yet most effective communication channels - email.

What is Email Marketing?

According to Neil Patel, (a famous entrepreneur), Email Marketing is the act of sending promotional messages to people in mass quantities to generate sales/leads. 

Hubspot states that there are over 4 Billion daily email users, and 4 out of 5 marketers say they'd rather give up social media than email marketing. 

Wonder why…

Why Email Marketing?

The global e-mail marketing market was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to increase to $17.9 billion by 2027.

In case you’re wondering, here’s a list of reasons why email marketing is so important.

• Keeping in touch with your audience - Consumers are able to check their emails whenever it is convenient for them.
   
• Reach customers in real-time - Statistics show that over 61.9% of emails are opened on mobile devices. The increasing use of mobile devices, will lead to higher conversion rates.
   
• Higher engagement rates - Whether it is to reply to an email, to forward, to buy something, to sign up, or whatever it may be, every single one of us engages with emails.
   
• Measurable - You can keep track of delivery rates, open rates, bounce rates, the number of unsubscribes, and so much more.
   

The list goes on and on! Clearly, there are so many benefits of using email marketing. But, the question is, how do we make sure that our email marketing strategy is effective? That you are sending the right marketing emails to your audience?

B2B Email Marketing Best Practices

• Resonate with your tone 
  While B2C (Business to Consumer) emails direct you to take immediate actions like “sign up”, “buy now”, or “subscribe”, B2B (Business to Business) emails are more about building relationships and offering trusted solutions in a way they prefer.
   
• Personalized Messages
  72% of consumers will only respond to personalized marketing messages.
  Whether it is a welcome email message or a marketing email, a personalized subject line would increase open rates.
  Personalized emails have come a long way from just “Hi ( first name)”. Today, there are many tools and techniques that you could use to personalize messages.
   
• Interesting subject lines
  The ideal length of a subject line consists of about 17-24 characters. Ideally, this could be about 3-5 words, with at least one emoji. But make sure that you avoid using spam words and symbols in the subject line. But try and make it a catchy line that piques interest.
   
• Include a call to action
  What is the purpose of your email? What action do you want your recipients to take?
  If you want them to visit your blog, then your call to action could be something that goes along the lines of “Visit our blog”.
  
  But remember, it doesn’t matter where the call to action is directing them to, if the context of the email doesn’t lead up to it. For instance, you cannot send a marketing email about the discounts that your brand is offering and direct your recipients to read a blog about the top 10 countries to visit. It does not make any sense! That is why you have to make sure that the call to action you include in your email, suits the context that you’ve provided. In the end, your marketing email should lead up to the purpose of you sending it.
   
• One single email isn’t going to work
  Let’s say you run a business that provides consultancy services. To get your audience interested in you, you might have to send them more than just a couple of newsletters. Just because you send them an email, it doesn’t mean that they would actually become a customer/client of your business. Exactly why content is king. You have to provide them with the right details at the right time!
  Marketing automation would make this easier.
   
• Targeting the right audiences
  The buyer’s journey has three stages, awareness, consideration, and decision.
•  

To reach out to audiences that are in different stages of the buyer’s journey, you have to use different content. For instance, when at the awareness stage, a consumer becomes aware that they have a problem. So they are looking for educational content. At the consideration stage, the consumer will define the problem and look for options/solutions. So they need content that answers questions like “what is the solution and how does it work” or comparisons between multiple solutions. While a consumer at the decision stage would evaluate and decide on the right solution. They might consider several factors such as the pricing, case studies at this stage.

Just like that, the content should be tailored according to the requirements and preferences of each target audience/consumer group.

Conclusion

Remember that email marketing is not something that could or should be replaced by other marketing channels. Sometimes, it’s okay to go ahead with traditional or old-school techniques as well. And this is one of those times!
I mean, think about it!

Your entire life on the internet is built up using emails at some point. 
And email marketing still provides more results than most other marketing channels.
By adopting the above-discussed best practices, you can make sure that your B2B email marketing is done right!