Despite the proliferation of new channels and platforms, the #1 digital marketing method for growing a business remains email marketing, which still outperforms all other forms of digital marketing – including social media, SEO and online advertising.
However, the competition is gaining on email marketing, and that’s leading to new strategies and new approaches for increasing open rates and boosting click-through rates. Here are four strategies to consider in 2017 for your B2B company:
#1: Adapt for mobile
More people are reading their emails on mobile devices than on laptops or desktops, and that’s prodding companies to overhaul their email marketing campaigns for tinier screens. For one, it requires the use of responsive design techniques, to ensure that the email looks the same on a mobile device as it does on a bigger screen. Secondly, it requires the use of shorter, punchier email lines – if there’s too much text in the subject line, it just won’t show up on a tiny mobile screen.
#2: Segment by audience
Companies are no longer sending out the same email to everyone. By analyzing the data of their customers, they are able to segment their audiences and then send out tailored messages for those segments. That helps to boost the open rate, because the recipient sees that the message seems to make sense for them. The question, of course, is how finely to tune these messages. Some media organizations send out anywhere from 50-75 different messages, based on the preferences of readers. That’s probably overkill for a B2B company, but it gives you a sense of how data can be used to really narrow target audiences.
#3: Improve your creative
If you’re still thinking of email as primarily a text-driven medium, then you’re falling behind the curve. The new focus is on the creative content that surrounds the text, including the use of images and video. Using a vendor solution like Sendloop, for example, it’s possible to start creating beautiful emails that people are actually going to want to open. And, if you’re not sure about how this creative is going to look on different devices, you can also use an email preview tool like Litmus. After all, there’s nothing worse than sending out a beautifully crafted email message that only looks good on half the devices it’s being read on.
#4: Create an email campaign strategy
It’s time to start thinking of how weekly emails fit into the broader marketing picture. That means thinking in terms of “email campaigns” rather than “weekly emails.” This will help you to think of what to include inside the emails. If you’re already segmenting users, you may find that your email campaigns practically create themselves, depending on where the buyer is on the customer journey. For buyers first starting out on the journey, for example, the focus might need to be more on building awareness of the types of solutions that you offer. For other buyers, the focus might be more on educating them on why your solutions are better than those of the competition.
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In 2017, 72 percent of marketers plan to increase their use of email marketing. Will you be one of them?
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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.