The “right contact” approach
One of the most popular cold email strategies is asking the recipient if they’re the right point of contact. This approach has been leveraged for many years by sales professionals because it’s been proven to work.
The “right contact” approach is a great strategy especially when reaching out to senior executives at a company. (Steli Efti recently talked about this in a piece about enterprise sales pitfalls and the role that CEOs play in the sales cycle.) When taking this approach, you can establish buy-in or at least intrigue from a CEO, and then your request will be delegated down the organization to a more appropriate contact. The advantage is that when you engage a senior team member, they become connected to the outcome and can help you move the deal forward.
I also reached out to [Colleague 1] and [Colleague 2] to try and lock down someone at your company in this space. If you’re the appropriate person to chat with, let me know and I’d love to schedule some time to talk about [Your Company].
The problem-focused approach
If you’re selling something, you’re obviously trying to solve a problem. The problem-focused approach to cold email strives to catch a recipient’s attention by revealing their problem and then asserting that you can solve it. Like so:
Hey [First Name] – As an entrepreneur, managing payroll is probably at the bottom of your list of things you want to be spending your time on, especially when your company is growing as much as I read in [article/software/etc].
[Your Company] helps organizations like yours focus on what you do best while we manage the payroll. We’ve helped companies save money on accounting fees, free up time and find budget inefficiencies that were being overlooked.
The email template above focuses heavily on the pain points of payroll and how the sender’s company could take those burdens off the recipient’s plate. By placing the problem front and center in the email, the salesperson forces the recipient to confront the problem and decide whether it actually resonates with them. This template is most successful for organizations selling a painkiller rather than a vitamin. A vitamin is a nice-to-have (but not must-have) product while a painkiller can have a meaningful and measurable impact on a business.
What is B2B Email Marketing?
Strictly speaking, B2B email marketing is the practice of sending emails from one business entity to another with the purpose of selling products and services. Emails are usually sent from the marketing or sales team and are addressed to the decisionmakers in target companies. Such decisionmakers can include department managers, procurement, and anyone else with influence.
One of the objectives of B2C email marketing is convincing people to buy something right now. Whether that’s a toy for a birthday, new seasonal clothing, or the latest beauty product, you’re asking the target customer to choose you over a competitor. Unless a customer needs something regardless of marketing can’t wait, offering a promotion is often the best way to sell things. For many of us, waiting until there’s a sale and then stocking up has become a way of life.
On the other hand, B2B email marketing is done a bit differently. While promotions are occasionally used, most B2B buyers need to make an informed decision. Smaller examples of this might include choosing the right company laptop for employees who travel or work from home. This level of buying decision is similar to the consumer process, except it needs to pass the procurement process.
Purchasing large machinery or an office full of printers and copiers is much more complicated. As a rule, the larger the purchase the more corporate bureaucracy has to be dealt with. In addition, some things like production equipment must meet certain standards to be effective. To that end, B2B email marketing does a lot more with providing information. When the buyer determines a product is perfect, they’ll call sales and negotiate a price.
Deliver business value with a human touch
When most people sit down at their desks, something strange happens. They stop being their usual self and turn into their business self. Your business self is rational and goal-oriented. You are focused on getting tasks done and interacting with others in a highly professional manner. You use words like, ‘touch base’, ‘add value’ and ‘best in class’. Transforming into your business self is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s necessary.
But a lot of B2B email marketing campaigns fail to excite their audiences because they focus too much on the rational business points without adding the human, emotional aspects that are necessary to build a genuine relationship.
Are you ready to kickstart your B2B email campaign?
I’m Paulius, SEO Manager at MailerLite. I’ve helped many businesses with their SEO, from small e-shops to large news portals. Unlike SEOs constant changes, my music taste hasn’t changed since 7th grade. Which makes me wonder, has my taste been that good since then or has it always been bad? (Spoiler: it’s old school hip hop).
5 B2B Best Practices to Consider
1. Get notified when a lead fills an important form
2. Personalize your B2B email sequence
3. Use dynamic content
4. Optimize your B2B email subject line
5. Automate your B2B email marketing campaign
It is essential to be up to date when it comes to B2B email statistics. It helps you to know your market and how to improve it based on numbers. It also allows you to rate your B2B email campaigns based on reference statistics.
Reading the figures in this table is not tricky. If we take the financial consulting sector as an example, we can see that the open rate in total is about 11.50%, the clickthrough rate is 7.72%, and the bounce rate is 12,64%.
Resources:
https://blog.close.com/5-b2b-email-templates/
https://nealschaffer.com/b2b-email-marketing/#:~:text=Strictly%20speaking,%20B2B%20email%20marketing%20is%20the%20practice,are%20addressed%20to%20the%20decisionmakers%20in%20target%20companies.
https://www.mailerlite.com/blog/b2b-email-marketing-examples
https://envoke.com/blog/b2b-email-marketing/
https://nealschaffer.com/b2b-email-marketing/