According to recent research on email marketing, more than 80% of B2B businesses rely on email marketing to maximize their profits. On the other hand, every individual receives tens of emails in its inbox. And most of them end up in the spam folder. Sometimes even worse. In the trash bin. When we talk to business professionals, they probably get blasted by hundreds of emails daily. Most of them end up in the trash folder without a second chance.

Still, email marketing is one of the best practices that aid in growth of the businesses, especially small ones, and B2B ventures. Let’s explore the best practices that can save your email marketing efforts to nurture quality leads for your business.

What is B2B Marketing?

B2B stands for Business-to-Business marketing. Here, businesses approach other organizations with solutions that will streamline the processes of that organization. For example, a company supplying computer systems to an IT company can be considered under B2B business.

Email marketing cycles for B2B are much more comprehensive and longer than B2C email marketing cycles. Generally, B2B email marketing content needs a lot of explanation, problem-solving, and strategic content organization. Now, let’s understand how B2B and B2C marketing approaches are different.

B2B Vs B2C Marketing

There are several differences between B2B and B2C marketing. Let’s look at some of them:

1. B2C marketing mainly focuses on selling the product through its marketing efforts. On the other hand, B2B focuses not only on selling products or services to their customers but also on building lasting business relations.
2. B2C email marketing generally has small cycles, as it is primarily focused on driving sales from its target audience. B2B emails generally have longer cycles.
3. B2C email marketing campaigns tap on emotions, feelings, and desires to get sales from their target audience. B2B emphasizes educating and solving problems through content.

Further, you can refer to the table below to get more comprehensive differences between B2B and B2C marketing.

Feature	B2B Email Marketing	B2C Email Marketing
Target Audience	Other businesses and professionals	Individual consumers
Decision Process	Longer, involves multiple stakeholders	Generally shorter, individual decisions
Email Content	More focused on features, benefits, and business solutions	Emphasizes product benefits and lifestyle
Personalization	More formal and professional	More personalized and informal
Email Design	Simpler, focusing on information	Visually appealing, may include images and graphics
Call-to-Action (CTA)	Encourages professional actions such as scheduling a demo, requesting a quote	Promotes direct purchases, discounts, or promotions
Lead Nurturing	Involves longer-term relationship-building	Often focuses on immediate conversion
Timing of Campaigns	Typically during business hours	May vary, including evenings and weekends
Regulatory Compliance	Compliance with business regulations, such as GDPR for international business	Compliance with consumer protection laws and privacy regulations
Relationship Building	Emphasizes building strong, ongoing business relationships	Focuses on building brand loyalty and customer retention
Content Tone	Professional and informational	More conversational and emotionally appealing
Automation Importance	Highly important for lead nurturing and personalized communication	Important for scalability and personalized consumer journeys
Email Segmentation	Often based on business size, industry, and needs	Based on demographics, behavior, and preferences

7 Best B2B Email Marketing Practices

Now, let’s look at the best practices of email marketing so that you can get the most out of email marketing strategy. The below points are sure to turn your marketing efforts into a successful B2B campaign. Don’t want to go through the stress of doing it all by yourself? Automate your email campaigns with Klaviyo marketing solutions by Forge Digital. If you want to get educated about email marketing? Then read on!

1. Understand Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is of utmost importance. It involves developing a buyer persona and learning about the decision-making wheel that will help you better understand your target audience. Buyer persona contains three stages of buyers.

• Learning/Awareness stage – In this stage, the customer is faced with a problem and he starts searching for solutions. Marketers can solve their problems by providing solutions in the form of blogs, videos, and e-zines.
• Interest stage – In this stage, an individual has gathered enough material and information about his problem. Now, he is looking at different ways through which he can solve his problem.
• Decision stage – The customer is ready to make a decision, he is searching for the most effective solution that can solve his problem.

The decision wheel is an outline of various factors involved in the decision-making of the individual. These factors are related to the product, directly or indirectly. To name some; price, value, options, benefits, policies, etc. You have to keep all the above things (buyer persona and decision wheel) in mind. And make a sound decision that will lead your business uphill.

2. Segment Your Audience

Your target audience is not at all the same individuals. They may share similar interests but they could differ in terms of age, beliefs, motives, needs, and desires. You possibly cannot use the same copies and content to attract each one of your target audiences. You need to strategically angle your copies keeping everyone in mind.

That’s where audience segmentation comes into play. There are various software online that can help segment your email list. Bomboobox is one of them. You cannot afford to miss this part of your email marketing campaign. It’s one of the, if not the most important B2B email marketing strategy.

3. Develop a Killer Subject Line

Email marketing is one of the most important promotional practices for B2B business growth. 80% of B2B business owners rely on email marketing for their business growth. According to Mailchimp, 4 out of 5 emails end up in the trash folder. The foremost reason for this is irreverent and spam emails. The next big reason is ineffective subject lines.

Almost every B2B company is blasting B2B email marketing campaigns now and then. Hence, you need to work hard on your subject line and email content to get the most out of a B2B email campaign. Effective subject lines will increase the click-through rate or open rate of your email.

Below are the top 6 tips that’ll help you create enticing email subject lines.

• Fine-tune your subject line with the respective audience segment.
• Keep it simple. The most effective subject lines are the simplest ones. Delivering the message straight to the point.
• Make use of power work, these words will help you catch eyeballs on your subject line.
• Keep your subject line under 30 to 40 characters (4 – 7 words).
• Avoid usage of spammy words and phrases that are restricted due to their high usage by spammers and hackers. Examples are, Free, discount, 90% off!, etc.
• Make a big promise. You have spent hundreds, even thousands of dollars on a single marketing email. You have to make the most out of it. Don’t shy away from making a big promise.

Refer to some of the exemplary subject lines for your inspiration.

• Friendly reminder: [Context]
• Don’t miss out: Last chance to [offer]
• Quick follow-up on our meeting
• Checking in on your progress.

Now, let’s hop into the email content.

4. Create Valuable, Engaging, and Personalized Content

You may have cracked the secret code of creating the best subject lines. But that’s not it. You also have to create good content that lives up to the promise you made in the subject line.

Your content not only engages your audience, but it should also provide valuable insight into how your service is the best they can ever have. You should also make efforts to personalize and align the content to your audience. Audience segmentation will help in this process. Audience segmentation. Remember?

5. Add Call To Action

Your marketing efforts will only succeed if you add a call to action. A call to action is a gateway to the solution to your customer’s problems. Call-to-action buttons should be strategically placed based on your email template and type of email.

You can place a call to action right below your hook paragraph. And one at the very end of the content of your email. Further, you can direct your CTA button towards one of your landing pages.

6. Validate Your Email

All your emails should land in the inboxes of your customers. And not in the trash or spam folder. You have to follow certain guidelines to make this happen. The guidelines change regularly, make sure you adhere to them and make the most out of your email marketing campaigns. Below is a list of general guidelines you can’t afford to miss.

• Your email syntax must consist of specific special characters (such as “.”, “-,” and “_”) along with alphanumeric characters.
• Cannot have a special character at the beginning or end.
• Special characters can’t be used in succession.
• Avoid usage of spammy words – Free, sale, mega discount, etc.
• Don’t give a chance to the audience to send a complaint to your email. This usually happens when you send spammy subject lines or when the content doesn’t live up to the standards you set on the subject line. Don’t do this!
• Allow your customers to unsubscribe from your email list. There are two huge benefits to doing so. First, your email marketing efforts will end up in your spam or trash folder. Second, it builds trust among your audience.
  
  

7. Timing is Important

This goes without saying. You don’t send Halloween sale offers during Christmas and vice versa. Make sure your email campaigns are well-timed and aligned with current market trends.

Email Marketing Automation Platforms

You don’t have all the time in the world. Right? You can rely on email marketing automation platforms to run your campaigns on autopilot. There are many of them, Klaviyo platform, Mailchimp, MessageBird, etc are some of them. Still, you need to learn some technicalities to make this software work for you.

Handing Over Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Are you looking for more comfort with your email campaigns? You can get in touch with a digital marketing company or freelance email marketers. They have the best resources, expertise, experience, and proven track record to give the best results for your investments. Just ensure they have the experience and expertise they claim.

Happy Campaigning!