B2B Email Marketing Guide

Email Marketing
B2B Email Marketing Guide
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: April 18, 2023

According to a recent industry report, 87% of business-to-business marketers organically distributed their content through email marketing in 2020.

This stat shows that the majority of digital marketers see B2B email marketing as an investment.

With benefits that include reaching prospects at the right time and increasing your brand awareness, it’s not hard to see why — and we’ll dig into this more below.

We’ll explain the different types of B2B marketing emails, along with the best practices, and share our list of the top email service providers that can help you generate leads and increase your customer engagement.

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What Is B2B Email Marketing?

Business-to-business (B2B) email marketing is a marketing strategy that uses email to promote your brand’s offerings to other businesses consuming your products and services.

An example of a B2B marketing strategy is Grammarly or Asana (businesses) reaching out to another business to promote their offerings.

Moving Prospects From Cold Leads To Hot Leads

In the world of B2B, most email recipients start out as cold leads.

A cold call email is the email you send out to a business that doesn’t know about your brand.

In order to move this prospect to a warm lead (a business that has interacted with your brand in some way) or a hot lead (a business that has been vetted and nurtured through a relationship with your brand), there are a few things to keep in mind.

Make sure your cold email:

  • Has an interesting and engaging subject line
  • Is short and to the point
  • Clearly states the benefits of your brand
  • Is personalized as much as possible
  • Includes clear calls-to-action
  • Includes clear contact information

4 B2B Email Marketing Best Practices

From personalizing your email campaigns to delivering the right message to your audience, here are five B2B email marketing best practices to follow.

1. Capture Attention With Specific And Engaging Subject Lines

Picture your email subject line like a movie trailer.

If you can’t capture a person’s interest within the first few seconds (or in this case, a few characters) you can’t count on them to watch the entire movie (or read your email).

Just like movie trailers, email subject lines provide a glimpse of what the email is about and ultimately encourage businesses to open and read the email.

To make your subject lines specific, you should avoid vague words such as, “Here’s something to get you started” or “Golden rules content marketers swear by”.

Instead, use specific subject line copy such as “Reduce your ad spend by 20% with our expert tips” or “Don’t miss out on our recent product updates” to give other businesses a specific idea of what they can expect when clicking on your email.

2. Implement CTAs

Provide one to two calls-to-action (CTA) per email to avoid overwhelming businesses.

If one CTA isn’t enough, you can position your secondary CTA elsewhere in your email, giving it ample space away from your primary CTA.

A few CTAs in your email campaign allow businesses to focus on your content and provide them with clarity on what action they should take next.

CTAs such as “Contact Us” should lead to your contact page while “Purchase Now” should lead to your pricing landing page.

3. Segment Your Email To The Right Audience

Keep in mind that different businesses may be at different stages of the buyer’s journey.

Are they just starting to get to know your brand or are they already convinced to hit the purchase button?

This is where email segmentation comes in.

Email segmentation helps you send relevant content to other businesses, such as your products or services they may be interested in.

This is more effective than sending an email campaign to a broader audience who may not be interested in your email content.

4. Utilize A/B Testing

A/B testing is sending email campaign variations to segments of your contact list so you can monitor which variation achieves higher click-through (those who clicked on the links in your email) and conversion rates (those who completed a desired action in your email campaign).

The variations can include different subject lines, content and email templates to test which email campaign will receive more open rates.

For example, you might test “LAST CALL: Up to 50% off on Zoom Pro 📣” and “Enjoy Discounts On Zoom Pro”

While these two subject lines convey the same message about Zoom Pro discounts, they are worded differently.

One subject line uses FOMO, an emoji and a specific discount offer, while the other subject line starts with an action verb, but is unclear what kind of deals the business can enjoy.

With A/B testing, you can understand your audience better by monitoring which email campaign gets more open rates.

Why Should Your Business Use B2B Email Marketing?

Since B2B email marketing is a powerful marketing tool, it’s important to know why your business should utilize it.

Here are some B2B email marketing advantages:

  • Allows businesses to be informed of your latest offerings
  • Enables engagement with your B2B customers
  • Increases your brand awareness so other businesses are educated about your brand
  • Permits targeted messaging to fit other businesses’ tailored interests
  • Generates traffic to your site with the use of CTAs
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7 Types Of B2B Marketing Emails

Here are seven types of B2B marketing emails your business can send out to other businesses to increase your brand awareness and promote your offerings.

  1. Announcement Email
  2. Welcome Email
  3. Newsletter Email
  4. White Paper Email
  5. Webinar Email
  6. Re-engagement Or Win-back Email
  7. Promotional Email

1. Announcement Email

Do you have any newsworthy announcements you need other businesses to know about?

Whether you updated your pricing options or received an award you can’t wait to share, announcement emails are essential to keep other businesses updated on your recent developments and share the news when your brand is recognized for something great.

2. Welcome Email

This is the first email you send to a business that might be interested in what you have to offer.

While you’re sending this to a business that might have an idea of who you are as a brand, a welcome email is a great opportunity to educate them more about your brand and services.

In addition, it should answer their question of “what’s in it for me?” to avail of your offerings.

A welcome email typically includes a “thank you” for signing up, additional information about your offerings and calls to action (CTAs).

3. Newsletter Email

According to a recent industry report, 31% of B2B marketers found newsletters the best-performing emails for nurturing leads in 2020.

Nurturing leads keeps your recipients engaged by delivering relevant information that may impact their purchasing behavior.

Newsletters typically include news about your brand or blogs your brand has published.

4. White Paper Email

Offer in-depth materials on topics that other businesses might be interested in, whether in the form of a report, study or white paper.

White papers include industry insights and trends, challenges and solutions for a specific business area and relevant surveys.

Enable other businesses to view your company’s white paper by providing a downloadable link through your email campaign.

5. Webinar Email

If you have an upcoming webinar, send an invite before the event so prospective businesses will know the webinar’s schedule and have a link they can refer to.

A webinar email should answer the questions:

  • When and where is the webinar?
  • Who will be presenting or speaking?
  • What topics will be covered?
  • What will attendees learn by attending the webinar?
  • How can an attendee register?

6. Re-engagement Or Win-back Email

This email aims to attract your existing and inactive business subscribers that aren’t engaging with your current promos, products and services.

Re-engagement emails that contain “we miss you” or the latest updates from your products and services can help you stand out and bring back inactive subscribers.

7. Promotional Email

Promotional emails are email campaigns that aim to “get the word out” or recommend your products and services to other businesses, whether you’re offering a product at a discounted price or announcing a new product launch.

Here are the seven types of promotional emails:

  • Product Launch Emails
  • New Arrival Emails
  • Limited-Time Offers
  • Sales Promotion Emails
  • Subscriber-Special Offers
  • Seasonal Campaigns
  • Giveaway Emails

Top Email Service Providers For B2B Email Marketing

Looking to send out B2B emails but not sure where to start? An email service provider can help!

Here’s our list of top choices for email service providers selected by our experts.

1. Mailchimp

Mailchimp
[Source: Mailchimp]

Over 13 million businesses use Mailchimp, an email service provider to create and send engaging email campaigns.

Mailchimp features include:

  • A/B testing or testing variations of an email campaign
  • Behavioral targeting or targeted messaging based on purchasing behavior
  • Predicted demographics or gender and age demographics
  • Subject line helper to gain feedback on word count and emoji usage

Price: MailChimp offers a free version of the platform, which allows a daily limit of 2,000 emails.

2. Constant Contact

Constant Contact
[Source: Constant Contact]

Constant Contact is one of the fastest expanding email service providers globally, with more than 600,000 global users.

Its ease of use makes it a beginner-friendly tool for managing email templates, lists and contacts.

Constant Contact features include:

  • Interactive email campaign (for example, RSVP to a webinar email)
  • eCommerce integration for Shopify e-stores
  • List segmentation to create specific contact lists
  • Email analytics

Price: Constant Contact offers a two-month free trial and monthly rates start for as low as $9.99/month.

3. SendinBlue

SendinBlue
[Source: SendinBlue]

An email marketing platform from Europe, SendinBlue is an email service provider that offers email marketing and SMS plans at affordable rates making it perfect for startups.

From a simple drag and drop email editor to automating follow-up emails, it has the required features your business can utilize, even if your team doesn’t have extensive email marketing experience.

SendinBlue features include:

  • Automated email follow-ups
  • Transactional emails
  • Trigger-based emails
  • List segmentation

Price: SendinBlue offers a free version that allows a daily limit of 300 emails.

4. HubSpot Email Marketing

HubSpot Email Marketing
[Source: HubSpot Email Marketing]

HubSpot Email Marketing is a well-known email service provider that can help your business build brand awareness and engagement.

Hubspot Email Marketing provides powerful yet simple features such as a drag-and-drop email builder and a wide selection of templates you can choose from to personalize your newsletter.

It has built-in integration with Hubspot CRM, an in-house customer relationship management tool, so you can customize your email campaigns depending on your subscribers’ country, segregation list or device type.

Hubspot Email Marketing features include:

  • A/B testing
  • CRM automation workflows
  • Drip campaigns or a series of emails sent to subscribers based on timelines and user actions

Price: Hubspot offers a free version that allows you to send 2,000 emails in a day.

5. Moosend

Moosend
[Source: Moosend]

Moosend is a low-cost email service provider typically used by small businesses.

Moosend is a competitive tool that provides both basic (automation workflows) and advanced (unlimited emails) email marketing features in all of its plans, including the free version.

Moosend features include:

  • A/B testing
  • Email design customization
  • Detailed email analytics
  • Predicted demographic data

Price: Moosend offers a forever free plan that includes unlimited emails and a limit of 1,000 subscribers.

6. Omnisend

Omnisend
[Source: Omnisend]

Omnisend is an email and SMS service provider for eCommerce businesses that want to provide an automated omni-channel marketing solution.

Like Moosend, Omnisend offers most of its features in its free plan. However, you should upgrade to a paid plan once your contact list exceeds 250 subscribers.

Omnisend integrates will popular eCommerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce.

Omnisend features include:

  • A/B testing
  • Automation workflows
  • Email performance reports
  • Subscriber segmentation

Price: Omnisend offers a free plan with a monthly limit of 500 emails to 250 subscribers.

7. Drip

Drip
[Source: Drip]

Drip is an email service provider that integrates with eCommerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce.

The wide range of tools allows for easy customization and email marketing automation.

Drip features include:

  • A/B testing
  • Easy drag and drop email builder for automated workflows
  • List segmentation

Price: Drip offers a free trial for 14 days. After your free trial, basic plans start at $19 for a contact list of 500 subscribers.

Key Takeaways On B2B Email Marketing

From increasing your brand awareness to generating leads, email marketing is a popular strategy among B2B marketers because of the many benefits it comes with.

Ensure you follow B2B email marketing best practices such as using specific and engaging subject lines, segmenting your email campaigns to the right audience and utilizing A/B testing to increase your open and click-through rates.

We hope this article will improve your next email campaigns and help you achieve measurable results!

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