For B2B marketers, email marketing really works. Time and time again, studies show that email marketing has a higher expected ROI than just about any other form of marketing. But there’s always room to improve your email marketing. Here are 4 quick hacks to help you take your email marketing to the next level.
#1: Test everything
There’s just about no part of the email that can’t be split tested. You can do some simple A/B testing with the subject line and the delivery timing. And you can even test the “From” name to see if that impacts the open rate. When it comes to delivery timing, for example, you might see if a weekly or twice-weekly email is more effective. The effectiveness of each email, of course, can be measured by the “open rates.” If your open rates are trending down, it may be time to A/B test another part of your email.
#2: Personalize every email
It’s not enough just to personalize the “To” header of the email, you also have to personalize the content of the email. This is easier than you might think, thanks to new email marketing tools widely available in the marketplace.
For example, say that you have three different types of buyers, each one of them at one particular stage of the buyer’s journey. For a buyer at the beginning stage of the buyer’s journey, the email can be personalized with a call-to-action (CTA) along the lines of, “Start your 30-day trial.” For an existing customer, the email can be personalized with a CTA like, “Upgrade to our new premium version.” And, for a prospect that may need a little more coaxing to check out your other products, you might include a CTA like, “Have you checked out our other award-winning products?”
And all of that personalization will really pay off. According to Jupiter, relevant emails sent to customers generate as much as 18x more revenue than a traditional broadcast email that has not been personalized at all.
#3: Adapt for mobile
More B2B decision-makers are reading email on their mobile devices than ever before. That’s both good news and bad news. It’s bad news in the sense that you’ll have to shake up your current email delivery strategy. But it’s good news in that it’s actually easier to get B2B decision-makers to respond to a short, pithy email that’s been specifically designed for mobile.
As a guiding principle, subject lines need to be as short as possible. In general, an executive needs to be able to read the full subject line on a tiny mobile phone or tablet screen. That means the subject line should 5 words, maximum.
In addition, the content of the email needs to be adjusted so that it’s more readable. If you’re sending out emails with multiple (two or more) columns of text, you really need to pare that down to just one column. And the entire email should be digestible in just a few seconds. You have to assume that you only have one shot for the person to read your email, so it has to be fully readable on the first open.
Email marketing is still going strong, and can be a very integral part of your overall marketing mix. Just be sure to adapt your emails for mobile and personalize them as much as possible. You’ll see your open rates and click-through rates improve.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.