If you are in the B2B field, you might have experienced dealing with long buying cycles.
It might take a lot of effort from you to maintain communication with your leads.
So: how can you scale the process of communication with your leads from nurturing to closing the sales?
Email marketing could be one of the best channels for dealing with the long sales cycle.
You can automate personalized messaging to your leads based on their interactions.
To help you understand the process, we will guide you through:
- What is B2B email marketing
- 5 tactics to build a B2B email list
- 3 types of B2B emails and when to use them
- 4 tips on how to write B2B emails
- 5 ways you can automate your B2B email marketing
- 16 of the best B2B email marketing examples
- 19 B2B email subject line examples
Here we go!
What is B2B Email Marketing?
B2B email marketing is the process of sending email campaigns to businesses or professionals instead of individual customers or consumers.
It’s known that B2B email marketing has a longer sales cycle. For that, influencing a consumer to make a buying decision with B2B email marketing is quite tough at times.
Establishing a B2B lead generation process is one way to make ends meet for your business and generate more sales through automated B2B email marketing.
5 Tactics to Built B2B Email List
One of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers is driving quality traffic to their website and converting leads into customers.
The best way to convert your leads into paying customers is by building an email list so you can stay in contact with them. But how do you build a large B2B email list?
Here are 5 tactics you can use.
1. Offer free consultation
Offering free consultation is an effective tactic to build a B2B email list with qualified leads.
You website visitors will have the option to meet the people behind the business and get to know them through consultation calls.
This method allows you to add a human touch to your lead generation process, and you can use such calls to:
- Learn more about your prospects
- Build trust and authority
- Share your successful case studies
- Cross-sell or upsell your B2B products/services
Free consultations are useful when you’re offering high ticket sales because a customer conversion is worth the resources you spend on the consultation.
Or, as a consulting company, free consultations help you learn more about customers when you’re just starting out.
And can use the new findings to change the format to a webinar using the patterns collected during the consultations.
2. Host a webinar with an educational topic
Hosting a webinar is one of the best ways to build your B2B email list.
This method allows you to provide useful content that your prospects and clients are looking for in order to help them understand their industry better, stay up-to-date and learn more about your company.
According to a study done by Convince and Convert, 67% of B2B marketers use webinars to generate leads.
3. Promote email-only content on your website
By promoting on your website that you provide exclusive content to email subscribers, you’ll be telling your prospects that you want to communicate with them directly.
It will also help provide a more personal touch for those who are considering subscribing in the first place.
Who doesn’t want to be treated like a VIP?
Exclusive email content makes your target prospects feel like VIPs and want to subscribe for more.
Email-only content is suitable for SaaS companies to educate their leads, nurture them, and eventually get them to sign up for their product.
4. Add a free trial option
If you offer a free trial, it will show your prospects that they have nothing to lose by finding out what else your business has to offer.
Plus, the time frame is perfect for those who prefer convenience over reading through information before making decisions or commitment.
A free trial allows your prospects to use your tool and see the value it offers, and at the same time you capture their contact information and send them onboarding emails.
Purchasing habits of B2B buyers are changing because of B2C apps like Netflix, Spotify and now companies have to adapt to this change.
In fact, three out of every four Business to Business (B2B) buyers would rather self-educate than learn about a product from a sales representative, according to Forrester.
So by offering a free trial you’re leading a product-led strategy in which your target audience can test your tool and find the value in it.
5. Be Transparent about Your Sales Tactics
If you are not transparent with your email list subscribers, they will feel deceived and betrayed.
The key is to be up-front and honest that you have a commercial goal in mind when sending emails.
You can let them know what they will be receiving by signing up for your newsletter.
For instance, in your confirmation emails you can share with your contacts what content they can expect to receive.
You can also share your privacy policy with them.
You may not have a “hard sell” in your B2B emails, but at least people are aware that these messages come from someone who has goals and interests in mind.
3 Types of B2B Emails and When to Use Them
There are multiple B2B email types, I’ll go through each one, explain it and share recommendations on when and how to use them.
Let’s start with transactional emails.
1. Transactional emails
Transactional emails are usually triggered by the actions of a user.
For instance, when someone subscribes to your blog’s email list or asks for more information about one of your products, you may send them transactional messages that go along with those specific events.
Here are examples of B2B transactional emails:
- Confirmation emails
- Thank you emails
- Welcome emails
- Order confirmation emails
- Registration confirmation emails
These emails are sent right after an action performed by the lead or prospect.
The average B2B email open rate is 15,1%, however a transactional email received 8 times more opens than a regular email newsletter.
Email marketing is the most effective way to reach out to your prospects and build relationships. But it’s also time-consuming.
You don’t have enough hours in a day to send personalized emails, follow up with prospects and manage all of that manually.
Instead, sign up to Automizy to automate all your transactional emails and save a lot of time on repetitive tasks.
2. Bulk emails
A bulk email is an email campaign you send to a large number of contacts at once. Bulk emails are generally used for marketing purposes and may contain:
- Product promotion
- New product/feature announcement
- Content digest
- Policies update
It’s best to segment and target a group of people that all fit the same profile.
For instance, if your company sells web development services you’d want to personalize your campaigns based on the industry of your prospect.
This way, even though you’re sending bulk emails, every email is different and personalized to match your contact preferences.
The main advantage of bulk email for B2B companies is that it’s more cost-effective for the sender as they have a higher chance of reaching their target audience.
3. Re-engagement campaign
There’s no surprise that contacts become active after a certain period.
And re-engagement emails are your solution to win-back your contacts and to keep them engaged.
Re-engagement emails should be convincing so your contacts reconsider opting out of your list.
And remember: re-engagement emails can’t just be one-time messages, they should keep coming as long as nobody responds.
Here is a re-engagement email sequence created in Automizy.
A good re-engagement email should:
- Include an offer, such as a discount or promotion
- Be short and to the point
- Ask the recipient to perform an action
On a last note, winning back inactive leads with a re-engagement campaign costs less than acquiring new leads.
4 Tips on How to Write B2B Emails
B2B emails are a great way to help maintain relationships with prospects and clients. However, there is more to writing these types of messages than just sending them.
Here are 4 awesome tips that you can use when crafting your next B2B email.
1. Be straightforward in your copy
Unlike B2C emails, which can be more casual in nature, B-to-B emails need to stay on point.
This means that you should avoid using any type of fluff-copy, and instead stick with what’s most important about your email:
- The product/service,
- The benefits,
- And, why they need it.
2. Avoid sounding robotic
The last thing you want to sound like is a robot.
Write human-like emails in a conversational tone to add some personality to your B2B emails, and avoid lengthy paragraphs of text.
Using an active voice in your email copy keeps it from being too dry and boring.
And by including your email in your email signature you’re showing that you’re a human being, not just another faceless company.
3. Use P.A.S. framework (Problem, Agitate, Solution)
This copywriting framework helps increase the attention span of your audience by highlighting the problem, agitating it and then providing a solution.
Using such a technique can make your recipients understand the problem more and see your offer as the possible solutions to solve it.
Similar copywriting techniques are widely used in the direct marketing world. And it all helps make your B2B emails:
- More persuasive
- Increase conversion rate
- Engage and delight your readers
4. Define a clear action for your recipients
It is crucial that you set a clear action for your recipients.
In other words, what will the recipient do next after reading the email?
It could be as simple as clicking on a link to get more information or it may involve making an appointment with one of the company representatives.
Reflect on your campaign objective and define a single primary action that you want the reader to take.
The more specific you are about the action you want your readers to take, the better.
5 Ways You Can Automate Your B2B Email Marketing
Would it take a lot of time to manage B2B email campaigns? No.
In Automizy, you can set up a sequence of emails to be sent automatically to your prospects or clients.
This allows you not only to save time but also create better email marketing campaigns that are more focused on converting B2B leads into customers.
Here are 5 ways you can automate your B2B email marketing.
1. Use behavior-triggered emails
Set up your drip campaign trigger by selecting one of these options in Automizy.
You can make your B2B email marketing personalized and automate email drip campaigns that can get triggered when a contact:
- Gets a tag
- Gets added to a list
- Submits a form on your website, or
- Clicks a link in an email
- Visits a specific website page
- Etc.
Triggers allow you to fire email automation and apply actions to your subscribers. Triggers are a great tool for follow-ups to previous engagements from your target group and help you achieve your pre-defined drip campaign goals.
2. Set up email autoresponders
To Immediately acknowledge those who contact you, it is best to include autoresponders to your most important forms on your website pages.
Let people know you’ve received their email and you’ll get back to them shortly. In customer service terms this looks great.
You can use B2B email autoresponders for:
- Subscription confirmation
- Welcome emails
- Lead magnet emails
- Etc.
3. Create email drip campaigns
An automated email drip campaign is a triggered sequence of automated emails sent on a predefined schedule to targeted email subscribers to achieve a specific result.
Companies use B2B automated email sequences to nurture their leads since the sales cycle is longer compared to B2C.
According to EmailMonday, businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451 percent increase in qualified leads.
The automated and triggered email campaign enables you to personalize messages to your subscribers on a scale.
Each time a drip email is sent out, it comes from a queued list of pre-written emails.
You can use automated B2B drip campaigns for:
- Appointment setting
- Email course
- Building a sales pitch
- Nurturing Leads
- Increasing free to paid conversion
It always depends on how you put it in use. Strategy.
4. Set up automation with conditions
Email automation with conditions allows you to send out email blasts to large groups of people at one time. It also allows you to share specific messages depending on your user and what actions they perform.
Let’s first take a look at email automation.
Here’s a breakdown of email automation with conditions created in Automizy.
How does this apply for a B2B email campaign in reality?
Here’s a use-case of email automation with conditions for a B2B company.
Suppose you are managing an automated email campaign for a webinar for a B2B company.
You’ll want to send a webinar invitation email, a follow-up email, an email with the live cast link, and another email for those who did not attend.
It seems like a lot of work huh! That is when the magic of automated emails comes in handy.
It all can be managed on autopilot using automated email workflows. Your webinar email automation would look like the following example:
You can set up conditions in your email automation if:
- Contact opened an email
- Contact has clicked a link
- Contact has a tag
- Contact is on a specific email list
That way you will be able to send behavior-based emails.
Probably you’re doing the math now on how much time this can save you.
5. Automate re-sending to non-openers
Resending your email campaign to non-openers allows you to resend the same email, but with a different subject line. But only to contacts who did not open your first email to increase your email open rates.
In Automizy’s Email Automation Software, you can resend your most important B2B emails to non-openers using a different subject line after a number of days that you define.
Check the “Resend to non-openers” box.
Select the number of resends, whether you want to resend email once or twice.
For B2B email marketing, every new sale generated from an email campaign counts. Do not leave behind any opportunity to increase your email open rates and sales.
Let’s have a look at 16 excellent B2B email campaign ideas.
16 of The Best B2B Email Marketing Examples
1. Welcome your new users
nDash, a B2B software company, combining both an onboarding and a welcome email in just one email. With a clean UI that states the next steps, new users need to take.
2. Promote your activities’ bundle
Zillow’s new Premier Agent newsletter which offers free-agent resources, event invites, and product announcements.
It is a single email campaign that promotes multiple marketing strategies: product, content, event, etc. All in one campaign.
If you are looking for more inspiration for your product launch email campaign, have a look at these 31 inspiring examples.
3. Set up your lead magnet autoresponder
One way to generate more leads is by offering a free lead magnet to your website visitor in exchange for an email address.
Here is a B2B email template from a digital marketing agency, responding to contacts who fill a form to receive a free marketing audit for their business.
4. Notify user on their trial expiration
With an eye-catching 14 that leads your eye to read, this B2B email idea is all about reminding subscribers that they only had 14 days to try out the app.
Emphasizing on the fact that everything is saved if they want to upgrade to a paid plan.
5. Confirm your customers’ payment
A good B2B email template of a branded receipt. A styled text-only newsletter, the CTA, and links are a useful addition to a plain receipt.
6. Remind activation
The following B2B email idea is a reminder email that Rdio send to their users a few days after their registration.
The subject line is: Almost done signing up for Rdio
7. Re-engage with your subscribers
Such a B2B email campaign can be created by applying email workflow conditions. In order to send it uniquely to contacts who did not open previous emails, for a chance to re-engage them again.
8. Offer help to your customer
HelpSprout send the following B2B customer care email template.
Telling customers how they can get help and it is a way to show that you care about their experience.
9. Retention email campaign
Our marketing automation fellows at SumAll are doing a great job with this holiday email newsletter. A great idea for B2B retention email campaigns.
“Keep in touch with us.”
10. Offer exclusive content to your email subscribers
The more knowledgeable, the more successful you can be in business.
Supporting your B2B audience with free educational resources is a way to capture their interest. Offering quality value can contribute to your brand trust.
Make the most of your content whether its eBooks, reports or any kind of document that your audience might be interested in. And use an email marketing campaign to distribute it.
The following B2B email example shows us how it’s done:
11. Expose your content
B2B email marketing campaigns aren’t always about making a sale. You can use them to drive traffic to your content.
It’s all part of that core B2B strategy. Making yourself relevant and helping them perform better.
The B2B email campaign is about offering value. No sales moves, just free resources.
12. Get more attendees with webinar invitation emails
Developing successful B2B marketing requires managing all types of content.
Webinars for B2B companies is a method to add new leads to the top of your sales funnel. And your webinar is nor only about the video broadcast, your webinar invitation emails have a lot to do with your webinar success.
Uber used clear design and 2 call-to-action buttons into their webinar event reminder email template.
In case, you are looking for more ideas for your webinar invitation email, get inspired by these 14 examples.
13. Send promotional sales emails
It is always better to keep B2B sales emails short, sweet, and impactful. Every sale does matter, highlight the benefit from the sale. That is what every business is looking for in your B2B sales emails.
14. Ask for referrals – Make the offer multi-beneficial
The role of referral in a B2B email campaign is to ask your loyal customers to refer you to their network.
This way you increase your sales volume and at the same time establish a win-win relationship with your customers.
B2B referral emails like this increase customers’ motivation to refer you to their friends. Make your offer multi-beneficial for both referrer and recipient.
15. Thank your customers for doing business with you
Showing gratitude to your customers makes the relationship more human. Send thank you emails to increase your customers’ engagement and loyalty.
Build a connection between what your customers have achieved with you in your customer appreciation email.
16. Ask for feedback with survey emails
Listening and respecting your customers’ feedback is among the fundamentals of business growth. As it helps you identify your pain points, and stretches your vision on areas of improvement.
Send survey emails to your customers and ask for their feedback on doing business with you.
19 B2B Email Subject Line Examples
Your B2B email subject line might be the blocker in front of your next sales opportunity. A subject line can block a prospect from opening a sales email.
Ammo yourself with these 19 B2B email subject lines to win the battle of the inbox.
- Quick question (Name)
- Have you heard?
- Feeling (insert emotion)? Let me help
- Ever Had This Problem? Tell me about it
- Hoping to help
- We have (insert fact) in common …
- 10 mins — (date)?
- Hi [name], [question]?
- Did you get what you were looking for?
- X tips/ideas for [pain point]
- A 3-step plan for your busy week
- [Name], I thought you might like these blogs
- Here’s that info I promised you
- I’d love your feedback on…
- Know this about [topic of interest]?
- Am I assuming correctly?
- End your month strong
- Before you write another blog post, read this
- Call tomorrow
Increase your email open rates by personalizing your B2B email subject lines. You can do so by including your prospects’ names in the subject lines.
Or try Automizy’s email subject line generator which writes you high-performing subject lines based on your email’s copy.
- Step 1: Copy & paste your email content.
- Step 2: Let Mizy read and analyze it.
- Step 3: Copy, like and use the subject lines you prefer.
In 3 steps, skyrocket your email open rates.
Conclusion
Applying the tips above can scale up your B2B email marketing performance, and we all know what it means. More sales.
Crafting a B2B email series will generate leads for your business. It might also improve your B2B sales performance, but it always starts with understanding your sales process.
Make sure to save your time with automated B2B email series, and personalize the content of your emails.
On a final note, always measure and improve.