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 B2B Email Marketing for Small Business

What Small Business Should Know About Email Marketing

Email marketing like every other delivery method of marketing communications has its usefulness and place. Knowing how to use it and where to use it is the difference between wasting your money and making it a successful marketing tool in growing your business.

1. I will tell you right off the bat, that email marketing is primarily best used in big business to consumer mass marketing. Simply because it relies on the same dynamics of big business direct marketing and the law of averages to work. This means it works best when you have hundreds of thousands and millions of potential customers you can sell.

2. Getting a legitimate permission based, (opt-in or double opt-in), mailing list for small numbers of sales prospects is hard to come by and if available you will pay between $1.00 to $2.50 per email address. Do not be fooled by advertisements for email mailing lists for $0.25 to $.50. If these are opt-in, you will still be required to rent an email list with a minimum quantity of thousands of emails, whether or not they actually have the minimum requirement of email records for your target audience. To be clear on this, if someone has 500, 800, 1,800 emails of your target market you will have to pay for their minimum rental quantity of 5,000, 10,000, or 25,000. This can get very expensive quickly.

3. Large numbers of emails never get delivered (60-70%) with increasing spam blockers on browsers and spam prevention software on network servers. This is why having your own opt-in email list is critical for email marketing success. If you rent a legitimate list just know you will pay a lot because they will not have the required minimum number of emails for the B2B target audience you are likely seeking.

4. Do not get hung up on all the hype about email performance metrics. Things like the number of emails delivered, opens, click-throughs, etc. The only metric that counts is how many sales you make. Revenue generated per email sent is a good metric along with your ROI per campaign.

Assuming you have a list or will pay for one, then the issue becomes how to construct a good email message.

Crafting a "Good Email" Involves Several Important Do's & Some Don'ts

Quality Content:

• Do send emails with quality content that is of interest to your prospects. Give your prospect a reason to want to receive your emails. Include some value for the prospect in the email. This could be tips, how to, or did you know information or a free service etc.

• Don't just ask the prospect to buy something from you.

 Keep Your List Opt-In:

• Do send only when you have valuable content for your prospect, not just because you need sales.

• Do ask your prospect to add your address to their safe senders list.

• Do follow up with your prospect once they send you their email address with a follow-up email. Ask them to confirm their permission for you to send them emails.

• Do include an easy way of opting out of your email.

• Do act quickly to remove prospects that request to be unsubscribed.

• Don't email your prospect every week. If email comes too often most people will consider it spam, even if they originally opt-in to receive your messages.

Avoid Spam Jargon in Constructing Emails

• Don't use words like the following in your subject line or they will trigger spam filters preventing your email from being delivered. (Affordable, Free (alone or with any other word), Cheap, Amazing stuff, Increase sales, Save $, Order Now, Limited time offer, etc.)

• Do personalize your email not in the subject line, but in the first line of your email when possible.

Developing Your Email Strategy

A good email strategy requires the application of tried and true marketing techniques. An email strategy that worked for your friend or for a competitor six months ago might not work today. Companies need to test variables continuously including format, design, copy style, calls to action, subject lines, personalization, segmentation, etc. The key word in conducting any email campaign is test, test and test again.

Email marketing is no magic bullet. It is like all the other marketing communications delivery methods it takes research, planning, testing and patience to achieve success and generate a profitable return on your marketing dollar investment.

MyMarketingDept. B2B Email Marketing

• We only prepare custom email marketing campaigns “no cookie” cutter approach

• We will develop valuable customer centric content that will make your emails desirable by your target audience

• We will research and find legitimate Opt-In email lists on your behalf

• We will craft "good emails" that are not "spammy"

• We specialize in working with small business so our fees are affordable

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