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I had been working in email marketing for a while before I took on my first B2B campaign. Of course, I knew that B2B campaigns needed to be handled differently than my regular consumer outreach, and I thought I'd made the necessary tweaks.
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What I don't realize is that small tweaks to standard email marketing strategies aren't enough to create a successful B2B campaign. Whether you're a beginner learning the ropes or a seasoned B2C marketer making the transition, trying to work with anything other than an email strategy designed for B2B marketing is a recipe for disaster.
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I've learned from my B2B mistake, and in an effort to save other marketers from making the same mistakes, I've put together a guide to building a custom B2B email marketing strategy.
Traditional email marketing strategies don't work for B2B campaigns for the same reason that two doors that are almost identical still need different keys: you're trying to get different people in the door. Here are a few specific ways that standard email marketing tactics fail when used in B2B campaigns.
Most email marketing campaigns are targeted at individuals, but B2B campaigns are targeted at companies - or rather, more people in a company. While the recipient of a B2C email is responsible for each stage of their buying journey, a company's buying process involves people in all kinds of roles.
When you're targeting a B2B target, you're actually targeting a group of targets - and your strategy should take into account the differences between the many contacts within the company.
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What this means in practice: to reach people effectively, you need to send different emails to different people within the same target company.
Buying something yourself doesn't take too long. To paraphrase one of my favorite Ariana Grande songs: you see it, you hear it, you want it, you got it. It's easy. (In my case, there's often a "check your bank balance" in there, but that's a mouthful of the poply kingdom.)
In business, on the other hand, the buying process can be a lot like herding cats. Getting multiple departments to come together on a decision, especially one that requires budget approval, takes Herculean effort—and Herculean patience.
What this means in practice: Because email marketing campaigns span the length of the customer journey, expect your B2B business marketing cycles to take longer.
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Buyers know they are buyers, so when writing B2C emails, you can be very clear about the fact that you are trying to make a sale. Content such as promotions, discounts and sales announcements are appropriate for a B2C campaign, but can feel awkward in a business email.
B2B emails tend to work best when they focus on providing information and resources. Educational content such as trend reports, industry benchmarks, how-to guides, and webinars help prove your product's value to B2B subscribers.
What this means in practice: you need to find completely new content types and formats to use for your B2B campaigns - displaying B2C content is out of the question.
You get it: B2C or traditional email strategies are no match for your B2B campaign. But telling you what tricks not to use without giving you to change them wouldn't be very helpful for me, would it? Here's how to nail your B2B email marketing campaign.
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If you're targeting a B2B company, you're really targeting that company's buying center—the group of people who decide whether or not that company will buy your product.
If you've done marketing in the past, you're probably familiar with an ideal customer profile (ICP), or an audience vignette created by describing the demographics, behaviors, characteristics, challenges and needs of your potential buyers. Your B2B targets are groups, so you need to expand your ICP to include separate columns for each unique role in your target company's buying center.
Armed with a customer profile matrix, you can dive into the mindset of each member of your target customer's buying center to better understand what types of emails are best for each role.
For example, a developer or user may be interested in a how-to guide related to a part of the user's work. If you send this email to a consumer who is primarily concerned with the purchase and renewal of the product rather than its actual function, it will likely be sent straight to the trash.
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If your emails match the real needs of your target audience, they'll perform better - and the fewer unsubscribe or spam reports you'll get.
When I run campaigns on average, the thought of tailoring my emails to each person in the company can send me into the mountains.
Email segmentation tools (built into most email marketing platforms) allow you to group your subscribers according to their characteristics. Instead of grouping contacts by company or industry, create a list of each unique buyer persona. With only a six-category list, you can hit everyone on your target list with content that matches their interests and needs.
The B2B email marketing cycle should be the same or similar to the B2B customer journey. By organizing your campaign into customer journey stages, you can ensure that your emails are relevant not only to who your target is, but also where they are at a particular time.
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There are five key stages of the buyer's journey, and different types of content are best suited for each stage.
Email templates are another important tool to keep in your smart and not heavy toolkit. Building a strong library of high-quality templates takes time, but you'll thank yourself later when you can answer hundreds of emails in one day and open five more.
The key to using templates is that the recipient of the email can't tell it's a template. Build a library of templates for every type of email you send frequently, using the same branding elements across the board, but making sure each template is still visually unique. Each of my campaigns has a different template for:
Keeping a library of templates will not only simplify your process, but it will also ensure that you can take your time with the peace of mind that whoever fills you in has the bones of a pre-made email ready to go.
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For example, you can set up automation to tag email contacts with any new information you find about them, such as demographic information and job characteristics. With a robust tagging system, you can target very specific audiences such as "female executives in the biotech industry" or "who attended in the Los Angeles area" with just a few types of filters.
The sequencing feature of your email marketing platform also allows you to set up pull campaigns to send over a period of weeks. This is a common example, but there are many others:
Like my template library, my email marketing automations let me sleep well knowing that things are running smoothly without my human brain.
You can create the most effective B2B email strategy the world has ever seen, but it won't do much if the email content isn't effective. Quality packaging and structural integrity are key to a successful burrito, but everyone knows the good stuff is what's on the inside.
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Of course, this tip applies to all types of email marketing. All email marketers should check to make sure their subject lines are short enough to show up in the inbox (Mailchimp says the magic number is 60 characters or less).
But B2C emails have a much higher chance of success despite a poor subject line. I personally can't stand the way the wine delivery app I use writes its subject lines, but I open all their emails anyway because I like being able to buy my wine without wearing shoes. But when I'm at work? A cold email with a bad subject line will go straight to spam.
The point is: the busier your goals are, the more important your subject lines will be. Put the value-add of your email (the resource, tool, or offer it contains) before the line. Make your call to action clear - tell the recipient what you want them to read, watch, send or subscribe to immediately.
I've mentioned before how important it is to automate certain aspects of your campaign, such as email segmentation and targeting. Inside
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