Finding new ways to generate leads and nurturing them is at the top of every B2B sales executive’s to-do list. Having said that, some of the existing ways to accomplish this are still valid and super effective in generating results. One of these ways being email marketing.
Not only does it generate the highest ROI at over $38 per every $1 spent, but it also beats social selling by 40x in terms of sales and customer acquisition.
Considering this, there is a real need for B2B managers to understand the various ways in which email marketing can help them in boosting sales. Here are a few to get you started.
#1 Define and Cater to Potential Leads
Lead generation is the very first step in the arduous process of acquiring a client, which is why taking the right approach here is crucial. Since curating a list of leads or subscribers is a must for making an email marketing campaign a success, polishing your database for potential leads who would want to receive your emails is necessary.
More than 79% of marketers worldwide state that high-quality lead generation is one of their top priorities. That being said, for most B2B companies lead generation is a by-product of email marketing campaigns.
Before you start, it is a good practice to segment your subscribers into sub-categories such as business or casual. While business leads are the ones who are likely to buy your product/service, casual leads are the ones who will subscribe to your emails for the content.
For effective lead generation through email marketing:
- Keep the emails informative and attempt to solve problems that your leads might have in their business using your expertise
- Provide offers and incentives to motivate the leads to associate with you
- Use graphics, images/videos to represent information about brand/product/service
#2 Nurture Leads All the Way
While lead generation is just the initial step into the sales process, what comes next is probably one of the most decisive factors in driving your sales — lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing requires you to reinforce and develop your association with leads at every stage of the sales funnel, so they don’t abandon your brand mid-way. In fact, 77% of B2B buyers feel that their last buying journey was complex and required long sales cycles. Naturally, quick turnaround times, and timely email communication is imperative in this case.
To keep your clients truly engaged through the process, a well-defined and tailored email campaign can help. That way your target audience receives constant reminders of your brand and is more likely to close the sales cycle sooner.
To nurture leads through email marketing campaigns, you should:
- Constantly monitor where your leads are on their buying journey
- Provide regular updates about your business/products and create a clear communication cycle
- Offer information that would make their decision-making process easier i.e. the benefits of your product/service, and/or the quality offered
#3 Implement an Email Automation Tool
As a B2B sales executive or manager of a growing business, you may already be sending emails to hundreds of potential leads intending to get more conversions. While most email service providers now provide you with options to schedule and send emails to a large mailing list, email automation is the ultimate solution that you may want to consider.
Marketing automation might sound complex at the outset, but did you know that automated emails are likely to generate 320% more results than emails that are not automated. Driving the sales process through email automation requires executives to learn the tool and all its features effectively.
Consequently, they can create and manage multiple targeted email marketing campaigns seamlessly using the tools, with minimal human errors.
To effectively use email automation for B2B sales:
- Design detailed product tour for your sales executives
- Track the metrics and analytics that the tool provides
- Keep optimizing the email campaigns by leveraging features such as scheduling, lead classification, and analytics among others
#4 Track and Monitor Email Analytics
The general rule of thumb when it comes to any online marketing campaign is to be constantly on top of the metrics and analytics associated with it, and tweak accordingly till you get the targeted results. When you use an email marketing automation tool, you can easily monitor your email analytics.
Some of the primary metrics to concentrate on for email marketing campaigns include click-through rate, open rate, conversion rate, and bounce rate. Other useful metrics include the number of people who unsubscribed, spam complaints, and the number of times your email has been forwarded or shared. With the help of these simple metrics, you can check how effective your campaigns are and figure out areas of improvement in your campaigns.
To use email analytics effectively for driving B2B Sales:
- Seek insights into user activity and behavior. Email metrics such as the open rate, or click-through rate will let you know whether your customers are actively engaging with your emails.
- Align your goals with the performance reflected in the analytics. For example, if you aim to increase your email list by 500 subscribers, keeping a check on the list growth rate will help you tweak your lead generation strategy.
- Tweak your campaigns to bridge the gaps that the metrics are indicative of. For instance, if the analytics indicate that your customers are reading your emails but not coming onboard as customers, consider changing your content or pitch to be more effective.
#5 Curate Personalized Content
When you are driving promotions through emails — targeted at individuals or businesses, personalization is absolutely necessary. Since the quality of your content determines whether people want to continue subscribing to your emails, it is important to target value every step of the way.
So why should you be personalizing content, you ask? Because it drives your revenue up by a whopping 760% and substantially increases the open rate. You can not argue with that kind of ROI. Personalized content also lessens the likelihood of the customer treating your email as spam or overly promotional. Combine diligently curated content with the right CTAs, and you have got yourself a lead who is more likely to resonate with your brand and move down the sales funnel.
To use personalized content in the right way for increasing B2B sales:
- Try to create personalized headers and subject lines
- Tailor the offers and promotions that you are sending to subscribers
- Encourage feedback or response from your subscribers
Wrapping up
With the right tools and processes in place, email marketing can be one of the most effective channels that fuel your B2B sales. While aligning your email marketing campaigns with your sales goals needs to be one of your primary considerations, tracking the performance of your email campaigns consistently is also equally important.
Follow the above tips to get a headstart in your B2B email marketing!
