BEST

B2B EMAIL

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MARKETING

PRA

CTIC

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by Lisa Marino

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9BEST

B2B

EMAIL

MARKETIN

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RAC

TICES

You know a great retail email when you see one. Deepdiscounts, trendy products, free shipping and limited-time offers entice you in your personal inbox daily. But what about your work email? How often do you take the time to read an offer from another business and actually respond to it?

And if you’re on the other end of the screen, how do you get businesses to actually pay attention to your B2B email?

To help you achieve that feat, we’ll cover nine tried and true email marketing practices that not only assist in getting your email to the inbox, but also make your reader want to respond during a hectic workday.

9 Best B2B Email Marketing Practices

• Dirty Data is Nasty Data

• Aim High for Deliverability

• An Email Has No Name

• Keep a Positive Outlook

• Play to Your Audience

• Hit’em Where It Hurts

• Ask for What You Want

• There’s No “I Can’t” in CAN-SPAM Compliance

• Go Mobile!

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DIRTY DATA IS NASTY DATA!1

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_________________________________________Nothing hurts your reputation more than an incorrectly addressed email. “Dear Geoff” will get you nowhere if Geoff’s name is actually Josh. Even worse, using an old company name when addressing a newly-rebranded company won’t score many brownie points either. How do you keep mistakes like this from happening? By keeping your data clean.

Make sure you’re performing data cleansing processes on your database to ensure accurate contact information. And, while you’re at it, run your email addresses through a validation platform to remove any “bad” email addresses like spam traps and other problematic recipients.

Although it might take a little longer to create personalized emails or write emails targeted to a narrow segment of subscribers, the gains from these efforts can be enormous.

For engaging customers, content that’s personalized and relevant wins every time.

You can’t build an effective email marketing strategy without first considering deliverability. After all, writing a top-notch email won’t do

any good if it never reaches its mark.

Even the best of offers won’t matter if they never make it into the inbox.

A couple of things to consider:

• Avoid the use of Spam triggers in your subject lines (you can find a list of them here), all CAPS, and excessive punctuation!!!!

• Try to avoid hyper-generic salutations in the body of your email such as “Dear Sir or Madame” or overly-formatted ones like “Dear Mr. Jimmy Kimmel”. “Dear Jimmy” would be the better option. NOTE: Do NOT use variable personalization in your email if No. 1 on page 2 hasn’t been completed!

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AIM HIGH FORDELIVERABILITY2

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AN EMAIL HASNO NAME

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3No, this isn’t a GOT episode. But 42 percent of readers do say the first thing they look at is the name of the personsending them an email.

Therefore, your “From” name should be your company name or an individual from your company. If it’s from a company employee, use their first and last name. You can also try making it more informational by using a format such as “[Name] at [Company].”

While these practices may seem pretty simple, they really resonate because they create and maintain brand awareness and trust, while at the same time build customer loyalty If someone trusts your company name, or is accustomed to seeing your name consistently populating their inbox, they are more likely to open and read that oh-so-important email you spent time developing.

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The sender name is a critical component. This tiny piece of a larger jigsaw forms the foundation of the recipients’ trust and email relationship with you.

KEEP A POSITIVEOUTLOOK

When sending B2B emails, you’ll have to design with Microsoft Outlook in mind. This means designing for a Word-based platform (Outlook uses Word as its display engine).

A few quick tips to simplify this somewhat terrifying idea:

• Make sure your email doesn’t exceed 600 pixels wide.

• Keep your hero images sized appropriately.

• Use universal fonts.

• Keep in mind that background colors and images won’t alwaysbe viewable.

• Provide a text-only version of your HTMLs to guarantee yourmessage is being read.

If you’re going to use fully-designed HTMLs, do yourself a huge favor and hire someone who knows how to code for Outlook! You’ll have fewer headaches.

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PLAY TO YOURAUDIENCE

Beyond having the correct data, you need to know who your audience is, what they sell, and who they sell to. By truly understanding your B2B target audience, you will be capable of serving them more relevant content that caters to their preferences.

Specifically, you can use this knowledge to build industry- appropriate imagery into your email - images that will resonate with the businesses you’re targeting. For example, you’re not going to use images of restaurant diners if you’re marketing to pharmaceutical companies - talk about confusing!

Also, remember to use a business-appropriate tone in your body copy - this isn’t your fantasy football team chat. You can make it fun, but keep it professional.

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Knowing your audience is key to content marketing success.

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The best offer you can put forth in a B2B email is to solve a pain point for that decision maker. This is why knowing your audience (see No. 5) is significant.

In your copy, be sure to relay bullet points that answer the toughest challenges your reader faces. For example, if your audience is part of a restaurant association, and you sell marketing services, your copy could reflect verbiage such as, “Keep your stores in front of the patrons even after they’ve left your restaurant (with display advertising),” or “Know which offers your patrons want before they choose their next dinner location (using analytics and buying behaviors).”

Whatever pain point your product solves, tout it. Make sure your audience knows that you provide a trusted solution that will make their life better or easier.

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Address a pain point; solve a problem. _________________________________________

HIT 'EM WHERE IT HURTS

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ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT7

Your biggest goal in email marketing is to either generate leads or gain direct sales. To do this, you’ll need a super strong CTA (Call-to-Action).

Design your email and copy around your CTA. Your CTA can be both a button and text links within your email – but make sure the CTA is the same CTA throughout the email. Too many different CTAs result in reader confusion and click paralysis.

Your CTA should be “above the fold” and include white space around it to guide your reader’s eye towards the CTA. But don’t be afraid to use colors on the actual CTA button itself – that will help it stand out!

Finally, make sure your CTA copy is concise, urgent, and actionable. Gone are the days of a simple “Click Here” request. From a mobile perspective, we don’t really click anymore, do we? We tap! Try unique text that tells the reader what they are getting – think outside the box. “See [Your Product] in Action!”, “Read the full white paper”, “Yes! I want a free trial”, “I’m ready to start now”, “Schedule my custom consultation”.

There’s no such thing as a successful marketing campaign unless there is a

successful call to action._____________________________________

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THERE'S NO "I CAN'T"IN CAN-SPAMCOMPLIANCE

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No business is above the law. Know your CAN-SPAM compliance rules, especially for commercial messages. You can view them here: CAN-SPAM Act.

Most CAN-SPAM problems are found during the unsubscribe process. You must include an Unsubscribe link, and your business name and mailing address in every email. Once someone opts out of your email, you’ll have 10 days to fully unsubscribe them from your mailing list. Not following these rules could result in a penalty up to $40,054 per incident.

Not following these rules could result in a penalty up to $40,054 per incident.

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GO MOBILE!

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9Even B2B emails are read on smartphones and tablets while in meetings, at lunch, or at 2 a.m. when your recipient can’t sleep. Keep this in mind when coding your HTML and make them mobile-responsive. You don’t want your audience to have a squint to read your email because it can quickly turn from a handy marketing tool to a major annoyance.

As always, be sure to test the above components to see what works best for you. • Company name vs. individual name.• Try different hero images at the top of your email.• Test multiple CTAs until you find one that works for your

audience.

If you keep these best practices in mind when writing, coding, and compiling your email for deployment, you’re bound to increase your inbox rates and CTRs! And if you run into any problems, help is just a short email away.

Lisa Marino, the email marketing manager for Multiview, ensures their cam-paigns are engaging, offer value and worth opening.

Possessing over 16 years marketing experience, Marino’s experience drives strategic growth and product visibility for leading sales organizations. With a primary concentration in digital marketing, she most recently spent two years developing and growing a marketing division that included email marketing, display advertising and paid social as product lines for customer acquisition and retention. Her campaigns focus on increasing customer engagement while improving development efficiency and speed. Marino has had the pleasure of collaborating with notable personalities such as Montel Williams (The Montel Williams Show), Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) and Phil Keoghan (The Amazing Race).

_____________________________________Design: Skylar Jones

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