Marketing Field Guide
Email Strategy: How to maximize the value of email in a transactional sales and inbound digital marketing B2B market environment
Executive Summary
A comprehensive guide to maximizing the value of email in a transactional sales and inbound digital marketing B2B market environment.
Your B2B email marketing strategy must focus on personalization, delivering targeted messages at the right time, and integrating email into a comprehensive nurture system.
By employing these strategic email marketing tactics and personalizing the customer journey, B2B marketers can overcome challenges, increase engagement, and ultimately drive more impact on sales revenues in a competitive market environment.
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Foundation
Email is one of the highest ROI tools due to its cost-effectiveness, personalization potential, and ability to control timing. However a successful B2B email strategy will differ greatly from its B2C counterpart.
The Value of Email in B2B Marketing
Email presents numerous advantages as a channel for effectively engaging your target audience. There is no cost to send an email, meaning the ROI will be very high compared to paid media which requires additional spending to increase the reach. Email can be configured in batches and sent to a large audience while simultaneously, it can be personalized to deliver an individual experience. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you can control the timing of message delivery.
Combined, email allows you to target the right message to the right person at the right time.
Obstacles in B2B Email Marketing Strategy
B2B email marketing demands a highly targeted approach due to the smaller, niche audiences.
Securing the right talent for B2B email marketing is challenging. B2B decision-making is intricate, often encompassing multiple decision-makers, while B2C marketing primarily targets individual consumers. Consequently, even expert email marketers may come from a B2C background and will struggle to develop a B2B email strategy.
Moving Beyond Email Platform Feature-Driven Nurture Campaigns
Traditional email nurture campaigns are often crafted as a standalone and complicated program. These campaigns tend to be driven by marketing automation features rather than addressing customer needs, yielding an interconnected multi-level campaign. Any critical issues will only become apparent after the campaign is launched; at that point, countless hours spent creating content may be rendered worthless.
A more effective strategy consists of a series of individual actions with a single goal that can be directly measured, and adjustments can be validated. By integrating the goal of nurture into every email sent, businesses can sidestep the intricacies of creating a standalone email nurture campaign and instead build a comprehensive machine for nurture that uses email as one of many tactics.
Strategy
Your B2B email marketing strategy must focus on delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. The emphasis is crafting highly-targeted emails based on interactions, aligning them to specific customer journey stages, and integrating email into a comprehensive nurture system.
A Tailored Email Strategy for Personalized B2B Marketing
Emphasize delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. Email lets us control both timing and individual recipients.
Send emails responding to user actions, aligning with their needs rather than imposing your agenda. This control over timing helps you tailor the email content accordingly. By crafting personalized emails based on interactions, each targeting a specific stage of the customer journey with a single purpose, you will foster engagement and accelerate prospects’ journey to converting to a customer.
Use email not to deliver content but to notify of relevant content available and where to find it. More tools are available for segmenting audiences based on web page views than email opens. You can track and monitor engagement by sending contacts to web pages, informing data-driven decisions for future marketing efforts.
Tactical B2B Email Marketing
By categorizing different email types, we can pinpoint each type’s unique strengths, which helps optimize their use to achieve better outcomes.
- Newsletters: Continuous email streams offering engagement opportunities, helping to identify highly qualified contacts.
- Drip Campaigns: Pre-scheduled email series that deliver set information within a specific timeline.
- Behavior Engagement Triggers: Emails tailored to individual actions, monitored by marketing automation tools. Suitable for drip campaigns or single emails, even based on non-engagement.
- Special Offers: Targeted emails providing offers to a select audience fitting specific criteria. Aim for strategic thinking, minimizing harmful exposure, and restricting the audience as needed.
- Announcements: Selective emails conveying important company news, updates, or product milestones. Exercise restraint to avoid overuse, and carefully consider the target audience. Exiting customers with entitlement rights may benefit from such an announcement. However, be cautious with prospects in open sales cycles, as new product announcements may introduce delays by prompting additional lengthy assessments.
Execution
Harnessing Email Marketing Across the B2B Customer Journey to Increase Deal Count and Accelerate Deal Closure
Success in B2B email marketing comes through a strategy of highly-targeted emails based on user interactions, which results in improved conversion rates and a seamless customer experience. You can design a comprehensive nurture system tailored to your customers by understanding the objectives, key outcomes, target audience, and appropriate email tactics for each stage—Discover, Try/Explore, Buy, Use, and Renew.
The Discover Stage in brief
The Discover phase aims to attract potential customers and create brand awareness, aiming to increase free trial signups. Key results include identifying anonymous traffic, increasing contact engagement, and identifying the most qualified contacts for advancement to the next phase.
- Strategic objective: Attract and engage potential customers unfamiliar with your brand or product.
- Tactical objective: Increase free trial signups
- Key Results:
- Identify anonymous website traffic as known contacts.
- Increase contact engagement to grow lead score.
- Identify the most qualified contacts for advancement to the next stage.
Applicable Email Tactics
Consider using newsletters and behavior engagement triggers in your email strategy to effectively engage potential customers during the Discover stage. A newsletter signup option helps capture names, build a marketing opt-in contact database, and deliver curated content based on high organic engagement, encouraging potential customers to explore your brand or product.
Behavior engagement triggers send an email with a free trial signup call to action when a specific score is reached. Note that merely consuming blog content is insufficient; contacts must also engage with the essential product or solution content. These triggers target potential customers with heightened interest in your brand or product, encouraging them to progress in the customer journey.
- Newsletter
- Capture names and build an opt-in contact database
- Deliver the highest organic engagement Discover content to drive more engagement
- Behavior Engagement Triggers
- Deliver Free Trial signup CTA
- when a specific score is achieved
- Contacts must have consumed essential product/solution content, not just blog content
- Encourage the next step in the customer journey
- Deliver Free Trial signup CTA
Email Audience
In the Discover stage, target everyone who has opted-in and has an engagement score above a set threshold. This score should be based on recent content engagement. Opt-out contacts who last opened emails or visited your site over a year ago. Consider demographics and personalized messaging to improve effectiveness and build stronger relationships.
- Opted-in contacts
- Engagement score above a set threshold
- Engagement score based on recent content interaction
- Opt-out contacts who haven’t opened emails or visited the site in over a year
The Try Stage In Brief
The Try/Explore phase aims to engage prospects and showcase the product or solution’s value. The objective is to increase quote request MQLs and SQLs that lead to an open opportunity. Key results include increasing content engagement, identifying interested leads for proactive engagement, and improving conversion rates from MQL to SQL.
- Strategic Objective: Engage with prospects and encourage them to recognize the value of the product or solution first-hand
- Tactical Objective: Increase quote request MQLs and SQLs that convert to an open opportunity
- Key Results:
- Increase Try/Explore content engagement to grow lead score.
- Identify most interested leads for inside sales/BDR proactive engagement (MQLs)
- Increase the number of open opportunities that have converted from an MQL to an SQL.
Applicable Email Tactics
Use drip campaigns, behavior engagement triggers (Buyer’s Intent), special offers, and behavior engagement triggers (Abandoned Signup) in your email strategy to effectively engage potential customers in the Try/Explore stage.
Drip campaigns increase engagement by promoting Try mini-site and video content, culminating in a call to action to contact sales. Providing valuable content and encouraging potential customers to learn more about your product increases their interest and likelihood of becoming qualified leads.
Behavior engagement triggers (Buyer’s Intent) target individuals in the Try/Explore stage who show purchasing interest, such as those visiting pricing or “how to buy” pages. Emails from assigned sales representatives further qualify potential leads, moving them closer to becoming MQLs or SQLs.
Special offers, used after trial expiration without MQL progress, may entice contacts with price promotions, encouraging further engagement.
- Drip
- Drive traffic to Try mini-site and video content to increase engagement score.
- Always end with a Call to Action to contact sales.
- Behavior Engagement Trigger (Buyer’s Intent)
- Sent to individuals who demonstrate an interest in purchasing
- in the Try/Explore experience
- visit Pricing, How to Buy, or other similar pages
- Provide a reason to engage now; consider Special Offer.
- Sent from the assigned sales representative
- Sent to individuals who demonstrate an interest in purchasing
- Special Offer
- After the trial period has expired and the contact has yet to take steps to become an MQL, a simple price promo email may bring them to the table for discussion.
Email Audience
Target known contacts who have completed the free trial signup process. Consider using a bonus program to target contacts who have partially completed but abandoned the signup process.
- Completed free trial signups
- Partially completed signups (secondary sub-campaign)
The Buy Phase In brief
In the Buy stage of the customer experience journey, the goal is quickly converting prospects into paying customers with minimal salesperson interaction, using personalized messaging and optimized touchpoints. This involves showcasing product value through tailored demos, success stories, and case studies while ensuring a seamless buying experience with easy access to support and follow-up. Automating customer engagement can improve sales team efficiency, allowing for faster deal closure with fewer reps and less training.
- Strategic objective: Efficiently convert prospects into customers
- Tactical objective: Minimize salesperson interaction and maximize the speed of conversion
- Key Results:
- Improve closure rate
- Reduce time to closure
- Refine and streamline touchpoints to optimize their effectiveness in accomplishing the previous outcomes.
Applicable Email Tactics
In the Buy stage of the customer journey, grant the sales team significant control as they receive credit for closed deals and accountability for lost ones. Provide them access to all content but limit automated sends. A simple drip campaign featuring select success stories, case studies, and a brand story video is adequate.
- Drip
- Success stories from satisfied clients
- Relevant case studies demonstrating product effectiveness
- Brand story video showcasing company values and mission
Email Audience
Target contacts who have become SQLs, engage with sales, and actively consider purchasing. Focus on providing relevant, timely information, using personalized messaging to foster engagement. Take care to exclude them from Special Offer or Product Announcement communications, as they might find them irrelevant.
- Contacts who have engaged the sales team to become SQLs and are involved in active opportunities
- Exclude this audience from Special Offer or Product Announcement communications
The Use Phase in Brief
In the Use stage of the customer experience journey, the focus is on ensuring customer satisfaction and maximizing product or service utilization to protect the account from competitors. Key results include increasing product usage, content engagement, and identifying all contacts within the customer account to maintain relationships and promote new tools and features.
- Strategic objective: Ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty while protecting the account from competitors
- Tactical objective: Maximize product or service utilization and identify all contacts within the customer account
- Key Results:
- Increase product or service usage
- Increase content engagement to grow lead score
- Identify all contacts within the customer account to maintain relationships and promote new tools and features
Applicable Email Tactics
Maintain customer engagement and satisfaction for loyalty and retention using email tactics such as drip campaigns, behavior engagement triggers, and newsletters. Drip campaigns provide onboarding, resources, and regular check-ins, while behavior triggers promote underused product features. Newsletters inform customers about new documentation, webinars, and product updates, ensuring satisfaction and loyalty.
- Drip
- Getting started guide and onboarding program introducing resources and support available to customers.
- Documentation
- Tutorials
- Training
- Tips and tricks
- Regularly scheduled Customer Success team check-ins opportunity at 30, 60, 90, 180, and 220-day intervals
- Getting started guide and onboarding program introducing resources and support available to customers.
- Behavior Engagement Trigger
- Promote documentation for sticky or unique high value features.
- Track against feature usage (and non-use).
- Promote documentation for sticky or unique high value features.
- Newsletter
- New documentation, as published and made available
- Training webinar series
- Announcements
- New product announcements
- Upgrade entitlement for updated releases.
Email Audience
The audience for a use email campaign includes anyone actively using the product or service at a customer site and other relevant contacts involved in the decision-making process. It’s crucial to thoroughly understand the customer organization to ensure all appropriate contacts are targeted.
- Active and current customers
The Renew Phase in Brief
The objective is to delight customers and ensure they continue to be satisfied with the product or service. This is achieved by focusing on delivering MQLs and SQLs for renewal business, with a strategic goal of improving closure rate and reducing time to closure. Refining and streamlining touchpoints is vital to achieving these outcomes and providing a seamless experience for customers.
- Strategic objective: Delight customers so they stay happy customers
- Tactical objective: Deliver MQLs and SQLs for renewal business.
- Key Results:
- Improve closure rate
- Reduce time to closure
- Refine and streamline touchpoints to maximize their effectiveness in accomplishing the previous outcomes.
Applicable Email Tactics
Effectively engage customers in the Renew stage of the customer journey by implementing email strategies utilizing drip campaigns and special offers. Involving the sales team in planning and establishing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is crucial to protect customer opportunities. Initiate a drip campaign well before the renewal date to engage customers and gauge their interest in renewing. Focus on asking customers about their needs and feature usage rather than directly discussing renewals. Personalize emails using customer usage data from support tickets or analytics and send them under the sales representative’s name.
For special offers, contact closed-lost opportunity owners with attractive pricing offers. Establish an SLA with sales to prevent sending the email immediately after a deal is marked as closed-lost, as ongoing discussions or new opportunities may still arise for internal process reasons. Using these tactics in the Renew stage helps maintain strong customer relationships and increases the likelihood of contract renewals.
- Drip
- Involve the sales team in planning due to their sole accountability of sales results; establish an SLA.
- Send emails in the sales representative’s name.
- Focus on customers’ needs and feature usage, avoiding direct renewal discussions—Personalize emails using support tickets or analytics data.
- Initiate drip well before the renewal date to engage customers and assess their interest in renewing.
- Special Offer
- Create an SLA with sales to prevent immediate emails after a deal is marked as closed-lost, as discussions may still be ongoing or new opportunities could be in the works.
- Claw back closed-lost opportunity.
Email Audience
Target the email audience with open renewal opportunities. Opportunities should be created in the CRM before contract expiration for timely engagement. Focus on customer satisfaction and contract renewal using personalized messaging and relevant content to address concerns.
- Automatically create opportunities in the CRM before contract expiration
- Concentrate activities on those with open renewal opportunities
Conclusion
By understanding and addressing the unique challenges of B2B marketing, our approach encourages a strategic, multi-channel method focused on personalization, targeted messaging, and comprehensive nurture systems. You can create tailored email campaigns that resonate with customers throughout their journey by employing key tactics, such as newsletters, drip campaigns, behavior engagement triggers, special offers, and announcements. Ultimately, this strategic email marketing framework empowers B2B marketers to overcome obstacles, elevate engagement, and drive increased sales, fostering a competitive edge in today’s dynamic market landscape.
Top Discussions Among Marketing and Product Marketing Leaders
The scope of our conversation is truly open-ended, with any topic related to B2B technology marketing on the table for discussion. However, if you’re seeking inspiration, here are a few example topics to spark ideas and get the conversation started.