Hate Spam emails? So does everyone else—but that doesn’t mean your prospects and customers would consider emails from your company to be Spam.
People like to get relevant and timely information—not to mention, promotions—from brands they know and trust, and also from those they have shown an interest in. As long as you’re following a thoughtful strategy and delivering true value, email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tactics that any manufacturing company can use.
According to OptinMonster, 77 percent of business-to-business (B2B) companies have an email marketing newsletter as part of their content marketing strategy, 79 percent of B2B marketers find email to be the most successful channel for content distribution, and 59 percent cite email as their top channel for revenue generation. Here’s why:
Easy Setup
Any marketing tactic you choose will require some initial work to implement, but email is one of the lighter lifts comparatively. Choose a well-known platform such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, Salesforce or OptinMonster and work with an agency like Netwave to get your list of contacts uploaded. If you already have an email platform that has been sitting unused, your agency can help you decide whether to keep it or switch to a different one based on features, cost, and user-friendliness. Unless your email list is giant and/or grows rapidly, the software costs will be nominal.
Branded Template
Once you’ve selected your platform and uploaded your list, it’s time to create an email newsletter template. A consistent look, feel and layout will strengthen your brand over time. Your first email blast should lead with a welcome message and the option to opt-out (perhaps with a playful quip encouraging recipients to stick around). The best B2B email blasts usually include some combination of company news, industry insights, featured products, team member spotlights and blog articles. Start with a monthly newsletter and consider increasing the frequency to include other one-off email blasts after you have a consistent process in place.
Actionable Data
The most powerful part of email marketing is the data. You can see exactly who opened your emails, who clicked, and what they clicked. For sales reps, this information is pure gold, handed on a silver platter. They can easily identify and follow up with warm leads separately—and no, it’s not creepy at all. It’s the nature of the digital age. Meanwhile, your agency can use opens and clicks not only to inform the content strategy but also to further refine your audience into different segments based on interests.
Website Traffic
Remember, before you invest in any type of marketing, it’s important to have both your brand and your website looking their best. In B2B marketing, email is a key opportunity for brand building, with every blast driving people back to your website to explore your products, services, and articles. Alongside search engine optimization (SEO), email can get many eyes to your site on a consistent basis. That leads us to our last point…
Brand Awareness
Staying top of mind. That’s what B2B marketing is all about. While consumer brands rely on instant sales and expect a constant churn of customers, the B2B world operates on relationships. It can take weeks, months or even years to land that next big customer. Simultaneously, you need to keep reminding and showing your current customers why you’re the company they choose to do business with. Email helps you stay in front of everyone, all the time, all at once, with content that they want to receive and have a reason to read.
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