Email marketing plays a substantial role in B2B marketing campaigns and is still a very effective way to communicate with and market to your prospects. However, the rules of the game have changed a bit over the years. Email pieces need to be carefully crafted to have an impact. There are several factors to consider when executing email campaigns. Let’s explore four tips to improve your email marketing success.

Quality Subject Lines

Email subject lines should be short, personalized, and include actionable language that entices the recipient to open it. Assuming your email makes it through to your target’s inbox without being caught in a spam filter, your subject line will likely determine your open rates. A/B testing is critical to successful email marketing. Take random samples of your contact lists, try two different subject lines and track their open and click-through rates.

Email Content

Much like a blog post, images, whitespace, and calls to action will significantly impact the success of your email campaigns. High-quality, relevant images will make your content easily digestible and more likely to be clicked on. You need to ensure an appropriate image to text ratio to avoid SPAM filters. I recommend the 60/40 rule; at least 60% text, up to 40% image. Some prefer the look and feel of email pieces with banners or images, while others prefer a plain text email. Take a random sample of your database, send different versions, and evaluate results to see what works best for your audience. 

List Quality and Segmentation

Research shows that B2B data decays at a rate of approximately 2% per month. This means over a fifth of your database is useless within a year. Failure to update your data can result in deliverability issues and wasted efforts. List segmentation is also key to a successful marketing campaign. Segmenting your lists to fit specific verticals or buyer personas will allow you to send more targeted content, which will result in better open and click rates as the information will be relevant to all those receiving it.

Calls-To-Action

Even if you’ve checked all of the above boxes, your email still may not have the desired effect without some kind of call to action. These can be in the form of a button (image) or hyperlink. You want to make sure that there is some form of call-to-action above the fold (where you do not have to scroll down) to convert a contact that has interest from an open to a click-through. 

Just as email marketing plays a vital role in the results of B2B marketing campaigns – A/B testing is of equal or greater importance in understanding the behaviors that are so critical to our success. It gives you a measurement of your impact and, more importantly, the behavior patterns of your customers and prospects. It is a roadmap to email marketing success.

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