Often, I’ll hear people tell me that email marketing is a waste of money. No one reads emails, is the response I often hear from clients. “I get 500 emails a day and never read them”, is a common refrain.
Over the last five years, email marketing for B2B has proven to be one of the most cost-effective ways to tell a story to prospects in different industries. For companies with limited marketing dollars, it can deliver a lot of value. I’m still in love with email marketing as it can unlock the opportunity to directly communicate helpful information to your prospects.
Our love/hate relationship with email is apparent.
When I receive an email that is helpful to me, where I gain knowledge, insight, or ideas, it shifts from being commercial to educational. No matter what the category, a useful piece of information, targeted to the right person, can help you communicate effectively.
How Email Marketing works for B2B
Let’s say you are in the business of making electrical fans for manufacturers. Your product is quieter than 
the competition, more energy-efficient yet twice as powerful. Your advanced technology is different from the competition who create fans that based on an approach from the 1950s.
What’s the best way to get the word out to the right audience?
Start with the audience
Who is the decision-maker who purchases fans for most manufacturing companies? Maybe you have identified three different titles – Director of Operations, Director of Purchasing and Director of Manufacturing. Perhaps your target audience is the Director of HR, who cares about creating a better workplace environment? Do you know how large your target companies based on the number of employees, a square foot of facility, etc.? Invest time to understand from the current base of business, who are the decision-makers?
Build a list
In the best-case situation, you have a mechanism to build a list of interested individuals. Perhaps you have a blog that talks about the latest advances in fan technology. Or maybe there are trade shows that allow you to meet prospects and you capture their contact information. One approach can be to download your contacts from LinkedIn into an email list and ask other colleagues to do the same if they are part of your target. Perhaps you purchase lists of people who have the appropriate titles in the sectors you want to reach.
You have to use your list frequently, or the names go stale. If someone leaves and their email tells you who has taken their place, you need a mechanism to update the list. Most lists will have at least 3% attrition each month due to the normal flow of people leaving companies and new employees joining. A goal is always to be growing a list too.
Create valuable and amusing content
No one wants an email that is pushy and salesy. But if your message cleverly communicates the new technology you have created for fans, you can have fun delivering your benefits. I’d start a FAN CLUB. Your design and graphics should be visually striking, with just a few bullet points of information. The key is that the data is both entertaining, eye-grabbing, and concise.
I get regular marketing emails from a range of people, and I can’t wait to read their message. It is helpful, valuable, and I anticipate their news. Occasionally, they’ll try to sell a book, conference, service or something else that is commercial, but I’m open to that message because I appreciate all the value they deliver to me with the information I need. Read Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook to see more details on this strategy.
Who opens the message
If you have a list built from personal contacts and connections, it will perform better than the one you acquire. But, let’s say you have 5,000 people on your list and they are in your target audience. If you created a campaign of five emails, that you send weekly, you’d probably get at least 500 people to open and read them. Maybe 50 of them will click the link and come to your website and learn more about your fantastic fan technology. Since you can identify who these people are, your sales team can follow up either through personal emails, calls, or letters, and ask if you can answer any questions for them about the new fans. You need a rigorous follow-up sales system to benefit from the opens and clicks.
What’s the value of these 50 leads
Since the cost for this effort is no more than a few thousand dollars, it doesn’t take much to generate revenue that exceeds the value of the campaign. But you can also benefit from getting your name in front of people in the subject lines, even if they didn’t read the emails. You pick up a little bit of awareness, that can help you make the people you want to sell, aware of your product line. Last month, one of my clients started sending out helpful emails, and someone they have been courting for two-years responded. That piece of business is worth six figures, and all it took was a valuable message in front of the right person at the right time.
How Marketing Works
If you are currently waiting for the phone to ring, generating 50 leads in a short period helps you to fill the funnel. It is proactive, not reactive. If the emails are memorable and helpful, that rate of 10% opens can slowly grow over time to become 20% and more. And, your email marketing approach allows you to speak directly to someone who may raise their hand and say – I’d like to learn more.
Email marketing, sometimes known as outbound marketing is only one part of a comprehensive approach to marketing. But as a tool for reaching your target with valuable information, it can prove to be an effective way to connect and begin to engage with people you can help.
Are you using email marketing to tell your story?
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. Visit my website at www.themarketingsage.com The conversation is free, and we can explore working together.
Photo by Marcio Chagas on Unsplash
Photo by Alex Martinez on Unsplash
