Email is a fundamental building block of virtually any modern marketing campaign, so why are some companies still struggling with it? How can businesses enjoy more success with their email marketing today – not after weeks of tinkering and testing? For many, the answer is as simple as changing their approach.
In the past, B2B email marketing was focused more on driving demand; it was a hard push. Now, email is part of a larger content web that connects with your audience in ways they find most relevant. Potential buyers are guided through the buying journey with personalized interactions that reach them at the right time and with the right message. It’s become a relationship-builder, not just a conduit for marketing copy. Here’s how to engage with your customers and start measuring success not just by how much you send out, but by the response you get.
Tone Matters
Listen to how people talk, and you learn a good bit about their relationships. People speak differently with family members than they do with friends, office colleagues, or new acquaintances. Those shifts in tone often go unnoticed consciously, but we’re keenly aware on a subconscious level if a close friend seems distant or a stranger sounds too chummy. The same holds true for the tone of your email marketing messages. If you adopt the brisk, breezy tone of attention-grabbing B2C sales copy, you could miss the B2B audience that wants to engage with you more substantively. Your email should have real value, either through the content itself or through an offer that’s tailored closely to the recipient’s needs.
Customize
To get that tailor-made fit between content and client, you need to know who your customer is. Relevance is key to successful content in any context, but it’s especially important in email where you’re speaking one-to-one with your audience. Whether you send out a thousand emails or a million, your goal is to make everyone who receives that message feel as though it’s intended just for him or her. That happens only when you customize email using the power of marketing automation software that’s integrated with your CRM. Once you get to know your customers, you know where each one is along their individual buying journeys, giving you insight about how to guide them along the path.
The Time Is Right
Some organizations do everything right with the tone and tailoring of their email, but they still don’t see significant returns, and it’s often due to timing. If you’re sending sales-oriented email to someone who still has entry-level questions, you won’t make an impact. Send a discount offer to someone who’s already decided to buy at full price, and you’ve cost yourself. Timing should be a priority for any email marketing message. Marketing automation is an especially effective way of governing the timing of everything from autoresponse emails to triggered email events.
Coordination
Email marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it’s part of your overall content marketing strategy. When you link email campaigns with your latest and greatest content, you automatically align your timing with your other marketing activities. Omni-channel marketing tools can also use email analytics as indicators for success in other areas of the campaign, acting as a force multiplier for everything your content marketing team does. When your blog, gated content, advertising, newsletters, case studies, and email all work in tandem, each becomes vastly more powerful and persuasive.
Stay on Target
Another overlooked area of email marketing is scope. You’ve probably seen emails that are so eager to share information, they lose their impact. A sharply focused message with a single clear call to action is always preferable to a scattershot approach. When you have plenty of news to share, find a unifying theme and package that as the single purpose of your email. You earn more of your readers’ attention when you make reasonable claims on it, so keep messages on point.
Email marketing is too important to overlook. Pay attention to these fundamentals, and you’ll see rising response rates.
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