B2B Marketing
Reading through all the promotional or informational emails sent to your personal address may be a frustrating task for you to complete at the end of the day. But for the businesses that send those emails, the reward can be pretty satisfying. In this article, learn what you need to do to craft effective B2B email marketing campaigns.
And along with the low-cost investment, these campaigns allow businesses to connect with a greater audience, while also allowing same businesses to “dissect how campaigns are going [and] use results to guide future campaigns,” added Zamanian. These benefits, says Zamanian, make email marketing a “very useful tactic for just about every industry.” Then again, email marketing—despite these many benefits—can also be a challenge for many businesses. To combat the difficulties that many companies face when preparing an email marketing campaign, below are a dozen tips and suggestions from email marketing experts.
1. Clearly establish your goals. Before beginning an email marketing campaign, “set the core strategy of what you’re trying to accomplish.” Laying out your objectives before you begin sending out hundreds of emails will allow your campaign to establish a direction and a desired outcome.
2. Educate yourself. Develop understanding and knowledge of email marketing, notes Zamanian. He recommends educating yourself on the industry in order to better comprehend every facet of your campaign.
3. Make sure you have a clean list. Having the correct recipient of an email marketing campaign is essential. CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, an online marketing tool, Janine Popick advises companies to maintain their lists in one place, easing some of the hassle of email marketing campaigns. And it may seem obvious, but it’s just as essential to “make sure your subscribers want to receive [the] message” adds Zamanian.
4. Send out a test email before your first blast. The delivery of an email is also vital in an email marketing campaign. So, before you click the send button, test the emails’ delivery. Zamanian recommends being proactive about your campaign, which means constantly testing the deliverability of your campaign. “Don’t think big,” adds Popick. It’s tempting to have colors and appealing fonts, but those elements could potentially set off the spam filter, according to Popick. And she also recommends that companies “click on every link” in their email. Broken links are an easy way for your message to end up in the spam box.
8. Check compatibility with smartphones. As an increasing number of customers consume their information on alternative platforms, businesses must make sure their email campaigns can be effectively read on multiple platforms.
9. Stay in touch. To stay relevant and resourceful to your recipients try to remain in touch, even after your usual emailing schedule. Recipients “might have lost interest and may want to unsubscribe,” says Zamanian, so it’s imperative to maintain conversations with your subscribers.
10. Keep up with trends and competition. To improve the success of your own email campaign, Zamanian recommends paying attention to industry trends and other vendors. Their efforts could help you tailor and enhance your own campaign.
11. Integrate social media. Social media can be a great way to stay in contact with your customer base. The casual dialogue, which social media is known for, could compliment the emails. And use “social media as a listening tool,” Zamanian adds, “see who is sharing your message.”
12. Evaluate or gage your campaign. Zamanian says that in order to improve your next email marketing campaign, you need to assess the results of your initial efforts. Do the final outcomes reach your initial goals?
Jeff Revoy is the Chief Product/Marketing/Strategy Officer of iContact. Continue the conversation here at Peace & Harmony Solutions, Inc.’s Blog and/or the B2B Marketing Group of AMAConnect, the AMA’s online community exclusively for marketers. Follow AMA on Twitter @twitter.com/marketing_power.
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