Five B2B Email Marketing Tips

by Stephanie Miller

Editor's note: See Stephanie in person at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Driving Sales: What's New + What Works. Catch her session on "B2B Email That Moves the Needle." Sign up for the event and use promo code ESPK08 to save $200 on the registration fee.

Here we are, oh email marketers, caught in the middle. On the one hand we are celebrated for being the go-to resource for generating short-term revenue results (anyone have that "hey, our numbers are down, send another email" conversation this week?). On the other hand, it's "funny" how the applause dies down when the budget talk comes around and we continue to be handicapped by limited investment and strained resources.

What's an email marketer to do?

With that reality as our foundation, I'm leading a panel of great marketers at the upcoming MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June. Return Path blog subscribers can.

Here are five ideas from a panel that I'm leading at the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference in June that you can apply to your own program. I'll be expounding on them during our panel at the conference. (Sign up for the conference and save $200 with the promo code ESPK08.)

1. Turn the recession to your advantage

Email is easy and inexpensive to get into, so more and more businesses are sending messages. You can see the result is in your inbox—more and more clutter.

That means our messages have to be better than everything else to break through. To get better messages you need to create great subscriber experiences. And that requires discipline around sending frequency, segmentation, data integration and advanced measurements and reports. Which requires more investment in the channel.

So when you feel the pressure to do more with less, focus on proving how sending more targeted messages will result in higher return over time and add value to your email asset. For example, trigger a message around a customer lifestage event—renewal, contract anniversary, upgrade, number of uses, new to the relationship, etc. Show how those messages earn higher engagement, in order to automate them for every subscriber.

2. Improve your benefit statement

Email is the highest-ROI channel, so be sure to capture email addresses at every touchpoint. Since you want to capture email at the point of entry, your homepage may not be the best location if most visitors come through alternative pathways.

Make sure there is a strong, compelling benefit statement on every search and advertising landing page, at the bottom of every blog post, in every sales and customer service call, in every webinar and every whitepaper download page.

The key here is "compelling." Product announcements and press releases are not compelling. These ideas are: Productivity tips, insider reviews, chances to network with peers, invites to cool events, and exclusive access.

3. Simple segmentation is essential

If you do no other segmentation, distinguish your messages between prospects and customers. These are singularly different groups with different relationships to your brand/products and different knowledge levels of your product and solution benefits. Treat them differently, or you will continue to optimize your email marketing for neither.

4. Sender reputation matters in B2B, too

Though many B2B marketers think that the feedback they get from the Web-based ISPs (AOL, Yahoo and MSN/Hotmail) isn't relevant since their file is not saturated with these domains, the reverse is actually true.

Those ISPs provide important feedback about your sender reputation based on complaints (registered at the ISPs when a subscriber clicks the "This is Spam" or "This is Junk" button)—and you can use that data to understand your program's deliverability at corporate systems.

Most business system administrators use Cloudmark or Postini—both of which are strongly based on complaint data—to decide what messages to allow past the gateway and to your subscriber's inbox. And, of course, some businesspeople specifically use consumer email systems to get email they don't want in their corporate inbox. It could well be person123@ AOL or Yahoo is also important.person@ your biggest account.

If you don't know your sender reputation, start here for a free evaluation: www.senderscore.org.

5. Test the tone

As the inbox clutters and budgets get tighter, test tone. Will your subscribers respond better to a happy, sunshiny "spend now to get ahead" message of hope, or a more somber, "how to get more with less" partnership approach?

Perhaps one will work better for different types of product messages.

Need more great B2B marketing ideas? Sign up for the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing conference now. Remember to use promo code ESPK08 and save $200.

Stephanie Miller is vice-president of strategic services for New York-based email performance-management company Return Path (www.returnpath.net) and the co-author of Sign Me Up: A Marketer's Guide to Email Newsletters that Build Relationships and Boost Sales. Reach her at stephanie.miller@returnpath.net.

What Is Your E-mail's Value?

Merkle notes two key findings based on its annual consumer survey "View from the Inbox":

• 50 percent of respondents had bought something based on a permission e-mail message, up 3 percentage points from the previous year.
  
  
• 50 percent also said a company that "does a good job with e-mail" influenced their purchase decision.

Conversely, a negative experience can drive customers away. In Merkle's report, 32 percent of respondents said they stopped doing business with at least one company because of its poor e-mail practices.

We talk a lot about how to improve e-mail deliverability by using opt-in subscription practices, managing your reputation, segmenting lists, optimizing content, and testing. But it all boils down to this:

Provide demonstrated value in each e-mail.

It would be nice to think your e-mail program's value would be so obvious that readers would see it in each message. Alas, we live in the real world, so we know we have to sell the value at all points in the e-mail relationship, even before it begins officially.

Promote your e-mail value at the following crucial places.

Home Page

This is your first chance to sell potential subscribers on your e-mail value. "Sign up for e-mail updates" and a link don't begin to hint at what they will receive if they hand over their e-mail addresses. "Join now and receive e-mail-only discounts and advance sale notices" makes the value clear and begins to set subscriber expectations.

Registration Page

This is your showcase, the best location to explain the benefits of signing up for e-mail, including the kinds of e-mail you send, how often, and what the content entails.

All too often, though, companies who have an otherwise excellent e-mail program give this short shrift. They rarely dedicate a page solely to the value of their e-mail program.

Instead, they slap up a checkbox and a one-sentence value statement more focused on the subscription function itself.

Elements to convey your e-mail value proposition more effectively:

• Explanation of benefits: What's in it for them?
  
  
• Privacy policy: Assure them you'll treat their e-mail addresses responsibly.
  
  
• Preference page: This increases message relevance.
  
  
• Sample messages: Let subscribers see what they'll get.
  
  
• Links, images, and transactions (subscribing, confirming, even unsubscribing): Make sure they work reliably each time.

Welcome Message

This is another opportunity that too many companies waste with a simple "you are subscribed" message. It's accurate enough, but it does nothing to remind subscribers about what they signed up for and what value your message brings.

Thus the welcome message, sent immediately after opt-in confirmation, has become a generally accepted best practice for conveying value before you mail your first program e-mail.

The optimum welcome program encompasses more than just a single message. It includes a separate cycle of message designed to get your readers engaged as quickly as possible.

Your e-mail program's value should shine through in each message, reminding subscribers of what they signed up for and that they need to open each message or miss out.

Regular Program E-mail

These are the regular e-mail messages you send as part of an established programming cycle. However, if all you do is sell, sell, sell, you'll wear out or bore your readers. And bored readers are likely to click the "spam" button to make you go away, especially if they don't trust your unsubscribe to work.

Elements to help remind subscribers about your e-mail program's value:

• E-mail-only discounts (one-time or permanent, only for subscribers)
  
  
• Invitations to fill out surveys or complete profiles
  
  
• Directions on how to use products or to contact company reps
  
  
• Account statements, membership numbers, links to key functions on your Web site
  
  
• Company or product news
  
  
• Changes that affect the e-mail subscriptions

Transactional E-mail

Naturally, a transactional e-mail's first job is to confirm an action, deliver an account statement, ask for a payment, or conduct other business. However, you can remind subscribers of your e-mail value here, too, provided you keep the focus on the transaction.

To do this, put the business in the top half to two-thirds of the message content, then put your e-mail value proposition in the bottom third to half. This is also called putting it "below the fold," a reference to a standard broadsheet newspaper page, where the most important stories go on the top half, above the fold.

Midcycle Messages

Don't wear out your list by sending more e-mail than you promised. However, a carefully chosen and timed message sent between campaigns or in the middle of a publishing schedule can restate and refine.

Use these messages to remind subscribers, especially less active ones, about e-mail benefits or account details to bring them back into the fold. Invite them to update their profiles. Send a short survey. Offer incentives for referrals. Explain any program changes that could affect their subscriptions.

Final Word: Emphasizing Value Is Easy

It might sound as if you have to overhaul your messages to make the value clear, but you might just need a simple retooling. Put yourself in your subscribers' shoes again, and see where you can add information or functionality, improve design, or boost convenience. Never waste another chance to remind your subscribers of all the benefits they have coming.

Until next time, keep on deliverin'.