Email campaigns in B2B should not only aim to sell more products or services. Rather, email marketing is a smart way to identify the best potential customers while identifying the need for solutions.
Many email marketing experts often talk about the ROI of email campaigns. Unfortunately, this is not as easy to measure in B2B as it is in B2C. After all, it’s not about offering a few more products with an email or selling an e-book. Email marketing in B2B is a very special challenge and requires special units of measurement other than the traditional success criteria such as open rate or click rates. If you only use these units, you are not exploiting the full potential of email marketing in B2B!
Today, email campaigns should be used to divide recipients into at least two categories: First, those who are engaged and curious, and second, those who are not engaged. This is the only way to achieve meaningful dialogue with email campaigns among subscribers.
Email marketing 2.0
Of course, the open rate is important for measuring an email campaign, but it does not measure the complete impact in B2B. If you only make decisions based on open rates or click-through rates, it can have devastating effects on your business and even, in the worst case, simply be wrong! Even if the open rate of your email campaign is low, the click-through rates can be immense because you reached fewer people, but they were interested in your content!
Email Marketing 2.0 connects this data even more accurately to your business. If you use this strategy, then you can tailor your email campaigns even more to your company’s goals. It even has an impact on your development departments and your sales strategies.
Email campaigns must be used to identify the best potential customers while discovering the need for solutions.
My tip:
Introduce a new unit of measurement for your email list: A=value/subscriber.
What is a new registration worth to you and what profile should he have? For example, you can create a special email list of decision makers, an email list of buyers and an email list of other functions. The more precisely you know from which group you need subscribers, the more important the value/subscriber becomes. Define these numbers based on your internal values and increase them accordingly.
In addition, define the B=loss/cancellation for each group. If someone cancels your list (or the email address no longer exists), then your list loses value.
Simply calculate the real value of your email campaign with the equation = A-B after each mailing.
Monitor and analyse click-through rates
B2B companies can also benefit from click-through rates. If the click-through rate to a piece of information drops, it just means that interest in that particular piece of information is dropping. Nevertheless, those who click through may be generating very good sales. So if sales are dropping, but people are still clicking on the information, then you should send more information. Maybe there just isn’t yet the information that readers need to make up their minds about you.
As you can see, it is important not to just lump “all subscribers” together but to separate them sensitively and then manage them strategically. If you connect your email marketing with your website, very special further key figures can be defined that will lead you to further optimise your email marketing – and thus exorbitantly increase the value/subscriber.
Integrate email marketing 2.0 into your internet marketing strategy and measure the really important key figures so that you make the right decisions – and no longer lose any prospects to competitors!
*Sanjay Sauldie, inventor of the internet marketing strategy iROI (Internet Return on Invest) is Director of the European Internet Marketing Institute & Academy EIMIA.
Last updated on 7. February 2023
