What I’ve tried that works.

Are your email marketing tactics meeting industry benchmarks or targeted KPIs? If not, here are methods that I’ve used that have increased conversion and open rates.  Yes, there was some trial and error, but I’ve had many more successes than failures. It’s crucial with email programs to understand your target audience.  You also need to remember to; keep it short, get to the point and don’t overwhelm them with emails.

There’s no sugar-coating how many bad B2B emails come into our inboxes.  Here are a few examples of what I’ve noticed.

• being emailed far too often
• uninteresting topic
• email is too long
• same old generic content (in the CTA)
• generic CTA – Download, Learn More, Register, Subscribe

I’ll go through some things that I’ve tried. They might improve your email results like they did for me. You’ll also get some ideas for new tactics to try.

Frequency of Emails

The typical B2B guideline is to send no more than 2 or 3 emails a week.  This does not include operational emails. 

Marketing emails and announcements can include things like webinars, event invites, special promotions, product announcements and newsletters.

Nurture or campaign emails are often sent weekly.  Your audience is receiving a lot of emails every day from many vendors. Their inbox fills up quickly. Keep in mind that the recipient may decide to mark your email as spam as a way to clean up their cluttered inbox.

Try This: A Bi-Weekly Cadence

I arranged for a bi-weekly cadence instead of sending emails weekly. Also, campaign members were added to a suppression list so that they would receive only nurture emails. You can integrate any other emails into your nurture campaign. This works better than sending one-off email blasts.

The key is not to bombard your prospect’s inbox. Consider how many other emails they are getting from vendors (and from co-workers).

You simply cannot rush your prospects into a purchase decision. Use an omnichannel approach so that you aren’t relying on sending frequent emails.

Email Header Image

Header images don’t usually accomplish what you might think they do. They make the email look aesthetically pleasing to the marketing team, but they do little to:

• accurately convey the purpose of the email
• encourage a reader to read the email
• make the reader want to view the asset 

Here are the drawbacks of using a header image.

An email header image usually:

• takes up valuable real estate (it pushes the copy down further)
• provides yet another boring stock photo 
• doesn’t load 
• can be the reason the email provider pushes it to the trash folder
• provides no useful information 

Try This: Don’t use header images in your emails

At one organization, I tested a theory I had. I created several nurture email programs that did not include any headers. The results were an increased open rate of 17% and click thru rate of 9% (we kept all things equal as far as the CTA). Note: we included an image of the asset. It had alt text, CTA copy and took minimal space.

One campaign manager took it a step further. Based on his understanding of the target audience, he used a simple text format. The click-thru rate increased by more than 7% consistently.

What matters to your busy audience is why would they open the email, what will they learn, and how will it help them.

If you are concerned about your organization’s branding…don’t be. The logo will be on the email and within the footer and even the way you write the copy can convey your brand.

It’s easy to get sidetracked by how an email looks, rather than the information it provides to the reader. It’s also critical to remember who your audience is. For instance, if you are targeting marketing professionals, then you may want to have an interesting header.

Send date and time

You’ve seen blogs or newsletters where it tells you that you should send B2B emails on a particular day of the week. They also suggest what time range to send your emails in to get the most views and opens.

Too many emails at the same time

What happens if everyone uses those same suggestions to send their emails? You guessed it. Prospects will get inundated with emails on the same day and time. That means that they aren’t likely to read them because there are too many. I’ve experienced that many times and I’m guessing you have too.

Wouldn’t it be better to send your email when other vendors aren’t sending theirs? Yes. The likelihood of your email getting opened and/or read would be greater.

One of the top 5 reasons that people unsubscribe from emails is because they are overwhelmed by too many emails. They unsubscribe from certain senders so they can declutter their inboxes.

Try This: Send emails when others aren’t

Try sending your emails in the late afternoon or evening (except Friday and Saturday). Your audience will be ending the day and may want to review their emails then.

You don’t want to join the vendor herd and end up in people’s inboxes at the same time as everyone else. Right?

I even sent emails on Sunday in the early evening with great success (open rate and CTR). I had a hunch that prospects might be reading through their emails before the start of their work week. My hypothesis was that they’d want to have fewer emails to deal with on Monday. So, they would go through them by Sunday evening instead.

Knowing your target audience is what’s essential. Understand their day-to-day challenges. That will help you determine a good send day and time. Try different days or times and see what your audience prefers.

Email Length

Your audience doesn’t have the time to spend time reading a long email.  Get to the point.  Your audience is only scanning your emails.  They don’t want lengthy descriptions of the problem or details about your product or solution, and how great it is.  

You already know that you have roughly 8 seconds to get your audience interested enough to view the asset.  Beyond that, they will just move on to the next email and delete yours. 

Have you ever received emails that have several adjectives, acronyms, buzzwords, or details about your organization and product? I recently received an email that had the organization’s name mentioned 4 times!  That would lose most readers’ interest quickly. The use of those words is taking up space and doing nothing to inform the reader why they should continue.

Try This: Get rid of excess words

Here are tactics that I’ve used that consistently improved CTR (click-thru rate) using fewer words. 

• Try 2 or 3 very short sentences. Use anchor text to link to the asset.
• A few bullets
• An image of the asset with links and cta verbiage or a CTA button.
• A closing sentence.
• Avoid using your organization name or even the product name
• Avoid adjectives as much as possible

(Note – you should always link to a singular CTA asset 2 or even 3 times)

Even if you use AI to create a basic email, you can drop the bullets I provided into the AI request.

Often, we get caught up in describing the problem. Your audience knows the problem already.  Be brief when setting the stage for the problem the asset will be addressing. 

Also, I keep the focus on promoting the asset, not the product (exceptions for late-stage and customer emails). In other words, why should they download the asset?  They need to find out how it will help them and what they will learn. Bullet points are perfect to provide the snapshot they need.  

Avoid using your company name in the body of the email. The name is in the logo, footer, and the “from” address.  The recipient will see it in the asset you are promoting. 

When I create and edit emails, I look for what words I can remove. That’s the key to keeping your sentences brief. I use the Words to Time Converter to see how long it takes to read an email.  

Use bolded words (or a different font color, or both) if you want to draw attention to something in particular that you know will be of interest to them. As the reader is scanning the email, their eye will be drawn to it.

Subject Lines and CTAs

I’ll keep it short. You already know the importance of subject lines. They are usually why the recipient opens the mail.  Preheaders also serve the same purpose.  

CTA’s are what determine the CTR (Click Through Rate). You should ALWAYS have really good content at the other end of the CTA.

Try This: Create two different subject lines for one email

I created two versions of an email.  The only difference between them was the subject line. If the first email isn’t opened by a recipient, they will get the second version. This helps to:

• determine if one type of subject line works better than the other
• provide a second opportunity for an email to be opened

Here are some other tactics to try:

Subject Lines

• Use common sense for subject lines, i,e. be concise, not gimmicky, use action words, be descriptive, etc. 
• Use free tools and resources to help you with subject lines (here’s a list)
• Know and understand your audience
• Don’t necessarily do what the “experts” suggest you to do

CTAs

• Avoid using the vague and typical phrases by themselves:  Download, Register, Learn More
• Add something to the typical Get Know, Register Quickly, Get the Details, Get This Whitepaper, etc.
• Show an image of the asset or offering
• Continue to experiment with CTA buttons
• The CTA should ALWAYS link to informative, helpful, non-generic content

This blog is via AI – Anne’s Insights NOT Artificial Intelligence.