Email marketing is still one of the best ways for B2B companies to connect with their audiences. Email marketing also provides a good return on investment (ROI) compared to other channels.
There are many different types of email marketing campaigns a B2B company can craft and launch, from welcome emails to post-sale follow-up, company announcements, and more. If you’ve been struggling to move beyond traditional email strategy, use these tips to broaden your email marketing horizons.
In this blog post, we’ll provide 3 powerful email marketing campaign ideas, so you can step up your email marketing efforts and start standing out from the competition.
How Does B2B Email Marketing Differ From B2C Email Marketing?
To make sure you successfully tailor your email marketing campaigns to your target market, it’s important to understand how B2B email marketing differs from B2C email marketing.
Stakeholders
B2B email marketing involves more stakeholders and thus, there are more opinions, needs, and people involved in the decision-making process than B2C. Because there are different stakeholders and factors to consider when making a purchase, you’re going to need to target each stakeholder at a different time, and with a unique message.
Sales Cycle
Because of the greater number of stakeholders, the B2B sales cycle contains more stages and is almost always longer than the B2C sales cycle.
Instead of moving through awareness, consideration, and decision and finishing the buyer’s journey in a short timeframe, the B2B sales cycle can include going back and forth between different stages of the journey multiple times throughout the process.
As a result, there are more marketing emails and touchpoints along the way, too—and sending the right content to your audience at right stage of their journey is key.
3 Email Marketing Campaign Ideas to Try Out
1. Curated Content
One great way to keep the attention of your audience without constantly pushing out promotional content is to send emails featuring curated content. This curated content can be in the form of videos, blog posts, podcasts, or any other resources you think they would find value in. Providing your audience with content that is catered to their interests:
- Saves them time, as they don’t have to search for valuable content themselves
- Gives them a welcome breather from your promotional content
- Demonstrates that you value them for more than just their money
2. Getting Started Post-Activation
Another way to engage with your audience is to connect with them after they purchase your product or service. This “getting started” email post-activation differs from a traditional follow-up because it provides more in-depth information about exactly how your product or service works, what they can expect, and how they can get the most out of their purchase.
You can use this email type to share any resources you’ve developed such as guides or articles and include links they may find helpful as well. Really, anything you can do to make it easy for the user to familiarize themselves with your product or service will be beneficial.
If these brand-new users had any intimidation surrounding getting started with your product or service, this email can help eliminate that.
3. Event Newsletter Email
One of the best ways for B2B companies to generate leads is to host or participate in events like webinars or industry conferences.
But the event newsletter email doesn’t stop at pre-event promotion or simple reminders. In fact, you should be emailing your audience after the event, too.
3a. Before the event
If you’re promoting an industry conference or other large event, help your audience by creating a unique guide to the event and sharing it with them. What do you think is worth attending that they might find value in, too? The same idea can be executed for virtual events and exhibit halls.
On top of providing useful information, pre-event promotional emails also remind your audience that you will be there, whether in-person or online, to interact with them as well.
3b. After the event
Imagine this: your company just attended a great event. Regardless of whether your audience attended, this is a great opportunity to provide your customer base with the insights you gained at the event. It also provides a wonderful opportunity to continue building your reputation as a thought leader within your industry and position your company as one that truly understands your market.
And for those in your audience who did attend the event? A post-event email only serves to reinforce their insights and can help increase your credibility, too, because you may provide new insights your audience may not have gotten otherwise.
These emails don’t need to be long. Providing a quick take on the event from your perspective, along with some key insights lets your audience know that you care about the market and industry and are up to speed on what’s happening and what’s next.
Accelerate Your Campaigns with These Email Marketing Ideas
It’s time to broaden your email marketing horizons and start thinking of new, exciting ways to appeal to your audience and maintain their attention. To continue accelerating the success of your business, try out one of our email marketing tips in your next campaign.
If you’re in need of B2B email marketing services or need help accelerating the success of your business, get in touch with us.
