5 Tips for Successful Business to Business Email Marketing

When done correctly, business to business email marketing is the second most cost effective form of online advertising. Business email marketing is closely followed by search engine marketing, which can be highly effective if you don't need to target specifically by job title criteria for your offer. However, many businesses jump into business email marketing and fail without knowing whether or not email marketing can even payout for them, how to structure a good offer, optimize HTML email creative and landing pages, or how to source a legitimate and responsive email list. I've heard many clients claim to have "been burned by email marketing" after ignoring a testing strategy altogether, overlooking honing their offer and creative on an internal list, having unrealistic response expectations, promoting badly executed creative, or executing a misguided/non-existant lead follow-up strategy.

1) Ensure Business Margins Are Sufficient To Warrant An Email Marketing Campaign

Business email marketing is a numbers game, and you better know your ROI and maximum cost per lead AND cost per sale. Generally speaking, if you can't afford to spend a minimum of $2,500 US on an optin email list rental, and at least $50 to $100 per lead (not per sale) then you should stick to pay-per-click seach engine advertising (e.g. via Google Adwords). Targeted business to business (B2B) optin (US CAN SPAM Act or Canadian PIPEDA Law compliant lists are $0.40 to $0.60 per email, with 5,000 email minimums) are expensive, and will offer returns if your offer is relevant and targeted well to that audience.

2) Have A Business Email Marketing Testing Strategy

When I hear from a client who "tried email marketing and it didn't work", I always ask them what they learned from their tests? Silence typically ensues, and a response may be "well, we didn't have any time or $ to do a test...". Before testing a business email marketing campaign, I always recommend honing your offer, headline copy and landing pages first using pay-per-click search engine advertising, via Google Adwords or Yahoo Search, and measuring using Google Analytics. This way you can test various creatives and landing pages and get a firm handle on your conversion rate from search click to lead or sale (Google Analytics is key for this, and free). This is key to control your ROI and see if an email campaign will pull for you.

Once you are ready to start an optin email list rental test, you need to really know who your buyers are. If you don't properly select at least job titles and SIC (Standard Industry Codes) for your test, you'll be dead in the water. Almost any email list will offer an "A/B split" for a nominal flat fee, which is simply the ability to test 2 subject lines (at least test subjects, they are the single biggest determinant of open rates) or creatives on 50% of the list each. This is key to getting learnings for your next campaign, and finding out what has worked and what needs changing. A poor or overly sales oriented (vs benefit oriented) subject line is huge reason why recipients fail to open a message.

3) Choose The Best Business Optin Email List For Your Offer

There are LOTS of lists out there, but only a very few will be relevant to your offer, and managed and cleaned well, not to mention even be US and Canadian privacy law compliant. You also really need to know how to choose a list, and there are many many things to consider: is it compiled vs single optin, how many times per week is it mailed, what is the data hygiene/refresh frequency, what is the average open rate, what kinds of offers do well, who are this lists repeat clients, is there a 90 day recency select, can you filter out domains, select 1 contact per company and the list goes on...

The best approach is to use a respected email list broker with lots of experience in your industry. Of course this may seem self-serving, but it's true - all of this vital list history and management information is available through a broker, who is an unbiased (and cheaper) source for 3rd party list rental recommendations. Not only will a broker know the history of a list, or work with them on a volume basis to get you a below market rate, but they'll also be able to share past top performing offers and tips on how to really leverage that list to generate more leads for you. Some good brokers will go the extra mile and help optimize HTML email creative for SPAM filters, and provide tips on streamlining landing pages.

4) Optimize Your HTML Email and Landing Page

The priority when running a business email marketing campaign is to get your message in the hands of the right people. If you can't get through SPAM filters, then you will be dissappointed with results. Using a rented list where business emails are sent from the publication will allow for subscribers to whitelist that server, and be more likely to receive advertiser emails which they've opted in for. That said, if you use excessive capitalization or punctuation in your subject line, your message will be more likely to be filtered at the client email application level.

The second biggest lever for increasing your lead count is your landing page. You need to keep it single minded with only one offer. Never include any navigation links on a landing page, you need to drive all traffic to a form which is easily visible. Don't use more than 250 words of copy. Leverage client logos and case studies as well as testimonials to build trust, which is absolutely key. Keep the number of required data fields down to less than 5, preferably only email and name, so that you can remarket to them at a later time using internal email marketing offers. Keep the headline of your HTML email consistent with your landing page copy. Never use an image that doesn't have a purpose (remove that pointless meeting room shot of executives, or that good looking man/woman leaning over a laptop). Every image must have a reason to be there, such as a big "download now" button for driving visitors to a submission button for a white paper, or a photo of your ebook or webinar speaker. Remember, the top 3 hot offer types are webinars, white papers and ebooks - all free of course. Lastly, make your offer timely - if the economy is down and budgets are tight, tailor your copy to appeal to those issues.

5) Have A Sales Lead Follow-up Plan

I know many clients who run successful business email marketing programs that generate a tons of leads, but don't leverage them. They either let them sit too long without contacting them, or start hammering away at them so much that they unsubscribe immediately from future contact. Timing of the sales cycle is always important, so often it's a good idea to follow-up on a lead by first asking them at what time should you contact them in the future. This respects their schedule, and puts them in the drivers seat (which clients always love ).

If you do plan on calling them by phone, be sure to have researched their company (ask for this in the form or look at their email) so that you are offering the appropriate product or service to them, at the right price point. You should also ask them if they wish to be added to future newsletters for receiving information tailored to their interests. If not, do not add them by default, since this will close the door for all future contact with this client. I always recommend a good hosted optin business email marketing solution such as Savicom (what I use) to manage ongoing promotions, newsletters or internal communications to keep in contact on at least a monthly basis.

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