B2B Email Marketing Guide Part 2 – Strategy

Jackie from Key Principles here again with a follow-up article on B2B Email Marketing. If you’ve not read the B2B Email Marketing Guide Part 1, you can check it out here.

In part 2 of the Email Marketing Guide, I’m going to look specifically at strategy and how your business and marketing strategy should inform your email marketing strategy as well as what you need to include in your email marketing strategy to increase the likelihood of success and an amazing return on investment with this marketing channel. I’m going to cover:

How your marketing strategy impacts your email marketing strategy
What is an email marketing strategy?
Tips for developing your email marketing strategy

How your marketing strategy impacts your email marketing strategy

A marketing strategy has a significant impact on an email marketing strategy as email marketing can and should be a key component within your overall marketing approach. Here are ways in which the marketing strategy influences the email marketing strategy:

Target Audience and Segmentation: The marketing strategy defines the target audience and customer segmentation based on market research and business objectives. This information is key for crafting an effective email marketing strategy. The marketing strategy identifies the customer characteristics, needs and preferences, which can be used to segment the email list and tailor email content to specific audience segments. By aligning with the marketing strategy’s target audience and segmentation, the email marketing strategy can deliver more relevant and personalized messages to recipients.
Communication Objectives: The marketing strategy also sets the communication objectives and key messages that need to be conveyed to the target audience. The email marketing strategy should align with these objectives and incorporate the key messages into email campaigns. Whether it is raising awareness, promoting a new product or service, driving conversions or nurturing customer relationships, the email marketing strategy should support the overall communication goals as defined in the marketing strategy.
Branding and Positioning: The marketing strategy determines the brand identity, positioning, and messaging guidelines. These aspects influence the visual design, tone of voice and overall branding elements of the email marketing strategy and your email design. Emails should reflect your company’s brand identity, maintain consistency with other marketing channels and reinforce the brand positioning. The marketing strategy guides the email marketing strategy in terms of maintaining brand integrity and delivering a cohesive brand experience. When someone clicks on your email and arrive on your website, it is best to have some consistency of design, style and tone.
Integration with Other Channels: The marketing strategy encompasses various marketing channels and their integration. Email marketing is often integrated with other channels such as social media, content marketing, and advertising to create a unified prospect and customer experience. The marketing strategy identifies how different channels should work together to achieve marketing goals. The email marketing strategy should align with this integration plan and leverage email as a complementary channel to support other marketing efforts. So, for example, you may look to promote a certain product offer through email marketing and at the same time promote it via social channels so that the two channels can work together, deliver a consistent message, and potentially increase sales.
Measurement and KPIs: The marketing strategy defines key performance indicators (KPIs) and measurement metrics to assess the success of marketing initiatives. The email marketing strategy should align with these KPIs and track relevant metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of email campaigns. Whether it is open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates or customer lifetime value, the email marketing strategy should contribute to the overall marketing strategy’s measurement and evaluation framework. It should be possible to align a specific return on investment to your email marketing and to also be able to compare this to other channels, as well as look to improve the ROI over time.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): The marketing strategy may involve customer relationship management initiatives to build and nurture customer relationships and increase repeat purchases. Email marketing should play a crucial role in customer engagement, retention and repeat purchase activity. The email marketing strategy should align with the CRM objectives such as onboarding new customers, delivering personalised content, sending relevant offers and re-engaging inactive customers. It should integrate with the CRM system to leverage customer data and ideally would include automated targeted email workflows. These days email marketing can be part of a CRM and as such this makes emailing clients with specific information much more straightforward.

By aligning the email marketing strategy with the broader marketing strategy, you can ensure consistency, effectiveness and synergy between email campaigns and other marketing initiatives. The marketing strategy provides the guiding principles:

target audience insights
branding guidelines
integration plans
measurement framework

needed to develop a strategic and impactful email marketing strategy.

What is an email marketing strategy?

An email marketing strategy refers to a plan that outlines how you will use email marketing as a marketing channel to communicate with your target audience, nurture customer relationships, promote products or services and achieve specific marketing objectives. It involves the systematic approach and tactics used to design, implement and optimise email campaigns for maximum effectiveness, engagement and return on investment.

Here are key elements involved in developing an email marketing strategy:

1. Define Goals and Objectives: Clearly define the goals and objectives that email marketing aims to achieve. These could include any and all of the following:

increasing sales
driving website traffic
generating leads
improving customer retention
increasing repeat purchases
enhancing brand awareness or
promoting specific campaigns

Setting specific and measurable goals will help shape the overall strategy and provide a benchmark for evaluating success which is so important.

2. Identify Target Audience: Determine the target audience for the email marketing campaigns. This involves understanding the demographics, psychographics, interests, and needs of the target market. By segmenting the audience based on relevant criteria such as purchase history, engagement level, or customer preferences, you can tailor email content and messaging to specific segments for better personalization and relevance. Of course, review of the marketing strategy will help speed this up considerably.

3. Build and Grow an Email List: Develop strategies to build an email list of subscribers who have given consent to receive emails from you is vital and will be explored in Part 3 of this series in more detail. However, it can involve tactics such as

website opt-in
lead magnets
content downloads
contests or
social media promotions.

Growing and maintaining a quality email list is crucial for effective email marketing. It is also an asset the business owns which is of immense value as it enables you to build your business without relying on paid advertising for example.

4. Content Strategy and Planning: Create a content strategy that aligns with the overall marketing goals and resonates with the target audience. Plan the types of content to be sent via email, such as newsletters, product updates, promotions, educational content or event invitations. The content should provide value to subscribers, address their needs and align with their stage in the customer journey. Providing value is crucial to successful email marketing and as a result does rely on the development of blogs, articles, videos and white papers that give real value.

5. Email Design and Personalization: Develop an email design strategy that reflects the brand identity and engages recipients visually. Create templates or design guidelines that maintain consistency across different email campaigns and reflects your website design. Personalization is a key aspect of an effective email marketing strategy so use recipient data and segment the data to personalize email content, subject lines and calls to action. This will enhance engagement and relevance. Of course, this can go beyond just using their first name at the start and can include use of it in the subject line, as well as use of company name, products they’ve shown an interest in and more.

6. Automation and Email Workflows: Implement email automation and workflows to deliver targeted messages at the right time based on specific triggers or user behaviour. This can include:

welcome emails
abandoned cart reminders
birthday greetings or
re-engagement campaigns.

Automation saves time, improves efficiency and allows for more personalised and timely communication with your valuable subscribers. It does, of course, take time to set up but the time spent initially is well with looking at the set up.

7. Testing and Optimisation: Continuously test and optimise your email campaigns to improve performance and maximize results. This can involve A/B testing subject lines, call-to-action buttons, email layouts or content variations. Analyse key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates to identify areas for improvement and overtime refine the email marketing strategy. Of course this is vital; as marketers we want to generate the best ROI we can and it is only by testing and refining that we can truly see just how effective email marketing can be for our business.

8. Compliance and Legal Considerations: Ensure compliance with email marketing regulations such as obtaining proper consent from subscribers noting the option to undertake cold email marketing as outlined in the B2B Email Marketing Guide Part 1, providing clear opt-out opportunities and follow anti-spam laws. It’s important to follow data privacy and protection guidelines to maintain trust and comply with applicable regulations like GDPR.

9. Measurement and Analysis: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns. Track and analyse metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, revenue generated, or subscriber growth. Use the insights gained from data analysis to refine the strategy, optimize campaigns and improve overall performance.

An effective email marketing strategy considers your company’s goals, target audience, content, design, automation, testing and measurement. By aligning the email marketing strategy with broader marketing objectives, you can leverage email marketing as a powerful tool for engaging customers, driving enquiries and sales as well as nurturing lasting relationships.

Tips for developing your email marketing strategy

Developing an effective email strategy requires careful planning and consideration. Here are some tips to help you develop a successful email strategy:

Set Clear Goals: Begin with the end in mind. What are your objectives? Define specific and measurable goals for your email marketing efforts. Whether it’s increasing sales, driving website traffic, growing your subscriber base, or improving customer retention, clearly outline what you want to achieve with your email campaigns.

Define and Understand Your Audience: Gain a deep understanding of your target audience, their preferences, needs, and behaviours. Segment your email list based on relevant criteria to deliver more personalized and targeted content that resonates with each segment.

Build a Quality Email List: Focus on building an email list of engaged subscribers who have given consent to receive your emails. Use various methods such as website opt-in forms, lead magnets, and social media promotions to grow your list with interested and relevant contacts. Place value of your email list and treat each email as an individual as that is what they are.

Craft Compelling Content: Develop a content strategy that provides value to your subscribers. Consider your messaging and write content that speaks to the individual. Create informative and engaging content that addresses their pain points, educates them, and builds a relationship of trust. Balance promotional emails with helpful and educational content to maintain a good rapport with your audience. Think carefully about your audience and provide the right content at the right time.

Optimise for Mobile: Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly and responsive. With most emails being opened on mobile devices, it’s crucial to design and optimise your emails for smaller screens. Use a mobile-responsive email template and test your emails across different devices and email clients.

Personalise and Segment: Leverage subscriber data and segmentation to personalise your emails. Address subscribers by their name, tailor content based on their preferences and past interactions, and send targeted offers or recommendations. Personalisation enhances engagement and increases the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

“Research shows that personalisation most often drives 10 to 15 percent revenue lift (with company-specific lift spanning 5 to 25 percent, driven by sector and ability to execute).” (McKinsey & Company¹)

Choose the Right Types of Emails: There are many different types of emails you can send including newsletters, promotional emails, and abandoned cart emails. Choose the types of emails that will be most effective in reaching your target audience and achieving your goals; both your email marketing goals, your marketing goals and of course your business objectives.

Repeat Purchases: Worth its own tip as email marketing provides one of the best channels to encourage purchase and crucially repeat purchase of your product or service. As an example, throughout our life’s we need solicitors from family law to property to wills so keeping your law firm top of mind for all your services will help your customer come back to you again and again. It will enable you to provide legal services throughout the life of each individual.

Test, Test and Test Again: Regularly test different elements of your email campaigns including subject lines, calls to action, layout and content variations. Conduct A/B tests to determine what resonates best with your audience and optimise your emails based on the results. Continuously iterate and refine your approach to improve performance.

Most importantly, remember that you are not your target audience. Of course, as marketers and business owners we need to put ourselves ‘in the shoes’ of the target prospect or client to look to provide what they want, but we cannot second guess this – testing is what provides the real data and results. Sometimes testing something that you think won’t resonate does and vice versa.

Automate Email Workflows: Implement automation to streamline your email marketing efforts. Set up automated email workflows triggered by specific events or user actions, such as welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, or re-engagement campaigns. Automation saves time, increases efficiency, and enables timely and targeted communication with your subscribers.

Develop or Tailor Landing Pages: Consider what you want the recipient of your email to do and if it is to visit your website, review the potential landing page options and potentially develop a page specifically for the email being sent. Of course this will take longer but is likely to improve results.

Monitor and Analyse Results: Track key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates and revenue generated from your email campaigns. Use email analytics tools to gain insights into subscriber behaviour and campaign performance. Analyse the data to identify trends, make data-driven decisions and optimise your email strategy accordingly.

Maintain Compliance and Trust: Ensure compliance with email marketing regulations such as obtaining proper consent, providing clear opt-out mechanisms and respecting subscriber preferences. Respect data privacy and protection guidelines to maintain trust with your subscribers.

By following these tips and continually evaluating and refining your email strategy, you can build strong relationships with your audience, drive engagement, and achieve your marketing goals through effective email marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed part 2 of the B2B Email Marketing Guide series. It was all about strategy and planning.

Coming up in Part 3, I’ll be covering in some detail the following aspects of B2B email marketing.

Your email list and building it
Email software – the options and checklist
Email set up
Improving ROI

Stay tuned and if you want to be informed of the publication of Part 3, why not sign up to our regular email marketing newsletters? Just add your first name, last name and email address in the box to the right 😊.