Do you know the most powerful email marketing strategy in 2024?
According to almost 80% of email marketers, it's subscriber segmentation.
While segmentation and personalization for sure work in the B2B world too, things are a bit more complex there due to different buyer personas and rules and regulations you must respect.
Whether you're switching from B2C to B2B or you're an experienced B2B marketer, you'll find something useful in this article.
Keep reading to discover 12 B2B email marketing best practices we've selected for you.
12 B2B email marketing best practices to follow
Here are some email campaign management tips that every email marketer should follow.
Add an opt-in checkbox
The best way to build trust is to be transparent and ensure people know what they're subscribing to.
We've all had the experience of signing up just to download a free lead magnet and then being bombarded with tons of promotional emails. What do most people do in that situation? Unsubscribe, or even worse, report your emails as spam, which can result in harming your sender reputation.
You can prevent this situation simply by adding an opt-in checkbox where people have to give you explicit consent to receive your emails. Avoid using pre-checked opt-in forms that can be seen on many websites, as they appear shady.
If you want to increase your subscription rate, you can add a value proposition next to your opt-in statement, like in the example above.
Include a double opt-in
Although a double opt-in isn't required (yet), it's one of the email marketing practices we strongly recommend.
This way, you're giving an easy way out to people who might have subscribed by accident, which helps reduce the email unsubscribe rate and create a high-quality list of subscribers who tend to engage with your emails more, as they've chosen to be on your list.
Double opt-in emails can be automated using any email marketing software. All it has to contain is your company name and logo so that people can recognize the list they subscribed to, a brief explanation and a confirmation button, just like in the picture above.
Now, you should be careful with incentivized signups such as coupons, discounts, gated content or email giveaways, as some people may subscribe just to receive the freebie, having no interest in reading your future emails.
When growing your email list, you shouldn't focus only on the quantity of your subscribers but their quality, too.
Proactively monitor your campaigns with Alerts
One of the common mistakes many email marketers make is analyzing their email marketing reports when it's too late – when bad things have already happened, like people unsubscribing from your list. There's nothing you can do to prevent it.
With SEINō, you can set alerts to monitor your campaign's performance in real time and notify you whenever some metric is higher or lower than you desire. For example, when your open rate goes under a particular number or when your unsubscribe rate suddenly increases, as you can see in the demo below:
And the best thing is that you don't have to be bound to your computer 24/7 to react quickly. Just add your email and you'll be notified on your phone whenever the campaign is underperforming.
Add your audience segments as labels in your UTM tagging
The main components of a UTM tag are source, medium and campaign, but at SEINō, we suggest going the extra mile and adding your audience segments as labels in your UTM tagging.
This allows you to organize your email campaign reports by segments and determine which strategies work best for each group of subscribers.
The quickest way to do this is to change your segment names into codes for this purpose and then turn them back to regular segment names in your reports.
However, we're not talking just about the basic segmentation based on user interests, preferences etc. SEINō has developed a dynamic segmentation based on user behavior that updates in real time, helping you understand how customers interact with your emails.
As you can see in the picture above, our email analytics tool labels subscribers as:
- Cannot lose them (your VIP clients)
- Promising (those who are interacting with your content and have even put things in their cart, but need that one final push to close the sale)
- Need attention (those who can be targeted with a lead nurturing campaign)
- At risk (those who used to be active but stopped engaging with your content; you can target them with a re-engagement campaign)
And many, many more. Everything is color-coded so one glance is enough to see where most of your audience belongs, reward loyal ones, prevent unsubscribes and boost sales with special offers.
Another way to monitor your subscriber base is to create a Subscriber widget to see how your list growth changes over time. Check out how to do it: https://app.storylane.io/share/xfhbftonrtdt
Set expectations with a welcome email
After your new subscribers have confirmed their subscription, you should send them a welcome email. This email serves not only to thank them for joining your list, but you should also use it to do two important things:
- Describe what type of content they can expect from you
- Tell them how often they can expect your emails
Your email frequency will depend on many factors, such as your industry and your audience’s preferences. You should find a balance between not spamming your audience with dozens of emails, but also making sure you're popping up in their inbox often so you stay on top of their minds.
Whichever frequency you promise, it's essential to stick to your promise and stay consistent, as that's the first step to building trust with your audience.
Create compelling subject lines
Everyone is talking about the importance of email subject lines, as they can make or break the success of your email campaigns. We won't repeat common knowledge about them, and instead, we'll share five fresh subject line tips you can try out in your next campaign:
- Address the pain point: Create personalized subject lines mentioning the biggest challenges and pain points of your prospect and showing that you fully understand them.
- Build suspense: Alternatively, you can hint that you have valuable information or a solution to their problem, making them read your email to find out more.
- Sprinkle some humor: You can incorporate industry-related jokes or light-hearted references that will immediately create rapport with the one receiving them.
- Add emojis to your subject lines: Yes, emojis are acceptable in B2B emails as well, as long as they're relevant to the topic. Emojis can help you stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes.
- Use good old FOMO: You can play with limited offers, urgency and scarcity, as the FOMO effect works in the B2B world too, as long as you don't overuse it.
Let your customers do the selling
It's no secret that social proof can convince your prospective customers to go from "maybe" to a strong "yes" and dramatically increase your email conversion rate.
We rely on feedback from others we find relevant and similar to us, and social proof serves as reassurance. Also, it plays with the human need to belong to a certain group.
But not all testimonials are created equal. Here are our three tips for getting the most out of them:
- Use social proof for your most popular products: Chances are, your email audience is already familiar with your best-selling product, and they just need that additional push. Also, the number of people who have already purchased that product is already social proof in itself!
- Pick testimonials that address common objections: Add testimonials that respond to the most common concerns and doubts that may be preventing people from purchasing from you, and let your existing customers overcome the objections instead of you.
- Show before and after: People often want to see something tangible, like a transformation you helped your client achieve. In the fitness world, this can be done through famous before and after photos, but if your product isn't tangible you can prompt people to describe their transformation in emails you'll later use as social proof.
For more tips on tracking conversion rates and other email metrics, check out this article explaining how to measure email marketing success.
Implement email verification
This small added step during the subscription process won't take more than a minute for your subscribers, but it can have numerous benefits for you.
You're making sure that invalid, fraudulent or disposable emails can't even sign in to your list, keeping it clean and also reducing your monthly subscription (why would you pay for invalid email addresses?).
Consequently, you'll lower your email bounce rate, protect your sender reputation and improve your deliverability.
Many digital marketing tools offer instant email verification, whether it's by sending an email to your new email subscribers, requiring them to take some action like clicking on a link or entering a code, or using syntax check to make sure that the email address they've entered is valid and correct.
Some transactional email services can do this automatically for you, so it can be a good idea to pay attention to that when choosing your email service provider.
Pro tip: Email verification also allows you to collect additional customer data, such as their first and last name, gender or the company they work for, which can help you further personalize your emails.
Optimize your email frequency
Many people are afraid to send too many emails because they don't want to come off as spammy; however, a lot of research proves that increasing email frequency can boost engagement, and as a result, lead to more sales.
We're not saying you should double down on emails if you already send them once a day. But, chances are that if you analyze your subscriber segments, you might realize that some of them are getting fewer emails than others, or as we like to say, one part of your subscriber list is underutilized.
Let's say your goal is to send, on average, eight emails monthly to every subscriber. Are there some segments that are getting less than your average? Is there a valid reason for that?
If not, try specifically increasing your email campaign frequency to these groups and see what happens. Chances are, you'll be positively surprised by their reactions and hitting your email marketing KPIs.
Remove only permanently undeliverable addresses
According to a popular online tip, you should "clean your email list" and remove all the inactive subscribers who haven't opened your emails in a while. However, we at SEINō have noted something different and there are other relevant resources that back that up.
People's priorities change. Maybe they're currently not in the space to engage with your content, but that doesn't mean it no longer resonates with them.
We've noticed that many people start engaging with our email marketing campaigns after a six-month break. And that's not all, many of them went on to purchase a product or service. And all that organically. Just think what would happen if you also had a re-targeting campaign.
Therefore, we advise you not to remove inactive subscribers without a strong reason. Remove only permanently undeliverable addresses, such as email addresses and domain names that no longer exist, as they can affect your deliverability.
Build lead nurturing and drip campaigns
Getting people to subscribe to your list is just the beginning. Before you try to sell them anything, you should nurture leads with educational content and provide value.
Here are some email campaign ideas:
- Sending helpful content addressing common pain points
- Providing industry insights and positioning yourself as an authority
- Sharing case studies, demos and clients' stories
Also, use email automation to your advantage and create drip campaigns that get activated after certain actions, such as visiting particular website pages, completing a form or downloading your whitepaper.
You can use them to send personalized offers based on user behavior that are often much more effective than standard offers. Relevant content and offers are guaranteed to increase your email click-through rates.
For more tips, check out these email drip campaign best practices.
Make it easy to unsubscribe and manage preferences
As of February 2024, Gmail requires adding one-click unsubscribe buttons to everyone sending more than 5,000 emails daily. If you don't comply with this rule, it can lead to increased spam rates and lower email deliverability, if not more serious consequences.
Even if you don't have that many subscribers, it's advisable to still do this, as a sign to Gmail that you're following email marketing best practices.
How do you add the one-click Unsubscribe button at the top of your emails, like in the picture below?
Easy, just copy and paste the following headers to your email messages:
- List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
- <https://solarmora.com/unsubscribe/example>
The only type of emails that still don't require a one-click unsubscribe are these transactional email examples.
For more tips, check out these transactional email best practices.
Conclusion
If you implement these B2B email marketing tips, you can see significant improvement in your email marketing performance.
But the best way to avoid guesswork and know which marketing strategies really work for you and bring you the desired results is to use a dedicated email analytics tool like SEINō.
SEINō allows you to analyze your audience behavior in real time, split test your campaigns and optimize them with insights gathered.
Schedule a free demo to see all its features in action.
B2B email marketing best practices: FAQ
How do you write a good B2B marketing email? Here are some B2B email marketing best practices. Personalized emails go a long way in the B2B sector. Make it about them, not about you. Talk about their pain points and challenges, showing that you understand them and can help them. B2B emails don't necessarily mean that you should use complex language – keep it simple and concise.
Is B2B email marketing effective? Yes, according to HubSpot, most B2B companies use email campaigns as part of their content marketing. One of the main advantages of email marketing is that an email inbox often has less distraction and noise compared to social media marketing and it's much easier to stand out and get the attention of your target audience.
How often should you send B2B marketing emails? It depends on your target audience, their preferences and the industry. According to HubSpot, 22% of companies send emails two or three times a day, 21% of companies send an email per day and 17% of companies send emails three to four times per week. The best advice is to test different email frequencies with your audience and see which one brings you the best results.
How long should a B2B marketing email be? There are various opinions on this topic, but there is no universal answer. It depends on the type and goal of your email campaign, as well as your audience's preferences, whether they like to read long-form content or not. We suggest focusing your email marketing efforts on getting your core message across instead of worrying about length and other technical details that might be limiting you.
