Convert leads to sales through B2B email marketing

The email has been around for decades, and while it’s a proven channel for B2B marketing, you might be surprised at how effective it is today. Although the technology is older, businesses still use B2B email marketing to connect with followers, convert leads into customers, and engage audiences with news, promotions, information and offers.

There are many ways that email marketing can help your business grow, and one of the most important things is how it allows you to reach people who have visited your website in the past without converting. In addition, you can target qualified prospects via email for a second chance at a conversion.

But to take care of a lead like this, it’s important to personalize and adapt your communication. For example, to make a real impact, you need to send the correct type of email on time and at the right time.

In this article, we look at how you can effectively approach B2B email marketing to connect with valuable leads and consistently convert them into sales, accelerating your business growth.

Write emails to potential customers that give real commitment.

Did you know? If you spend 1 USD on email marketing, it gives you an average of more than 43 USD back – if you do it right. Therefore, one of the most critical aspects of a successful B2B email marketing strategy is writing prospecting emails that grab attention and get results. Here are some ways to create real engagement through your prospecting email communications.

Understand your potential customers.

Email messages to prospects should be personal and targeted. A generic email sent to dozens or hundreds of B2B prospects is unlikely to generate the kind of response you hope for or deserve. No matter how similar the titles of different leads sound, they are not identical brands (or people). B2B prospecting emails require a different approach.

Take the time to learn a little about who to contact. What does the potential customer care about? One may be focused on driving sales, while another is trying to increase revenue and visibility.

You can get a lot of information about what is essential to a potential client by searching LinkedIn. Start by looking at specific job titles and thinking about what that type of job entails.

From LinkedIn profiles for a particular job title, you may be able to learn more about responsibilities, goals, and priorities. Go through individual profiles and identify pain points you can target. For example, what solutions can you offer someone trying to increase their visibility?

Is it the same solution as someone who is focused on driving sales? Take the time to understand your prospect’s pain point from the offset, and you’ll create a B2B email message that’s clear, valuable, and tailored to your recipients’ specific needs.

Speak the language of your potential customers.

Browsing LinkedIn profiles can give you a lot of information about a particular industry. It can also be helpful to study a company’s website and online conversations to find out what topic they most often talk about and what language they use.

Spend time reviewing job representative websites to get a clearer idea of what a particular job title entails and where this type of role fits into a specific organization.

Listen to social media conversations involving a person you plan to contact. Does your prospect address people in a casual conversational tone or choose more formal or technical-sounding words? What keywords are likely to catch a particular prospect’s attention?

The more you study your prospect and how they interact with others, the more you understand how different options are and how you can offer solutions to alleviate their pain points, challenges, or problems. With this kind of detailed information, your emails cannot be generic.

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Create a clear call to action.

Instead of trying to sell something in your mailing, your goal is simply to gain the prospect’s trust and interest. One way to end your email is to direct them to a relevant blog post. Ask them if they could read the post and tell you what they think. This is in no way intrusive. Ideally, the post you send them will include information demonstrating your ability to get results.

Another call to action (CTA) would be to ask if they have tried a specific marketing strategy and suggest they read a post that provides more information about this different approach. Indicating that they investigate more information is unlikely to threaten them, especially if you’ve taken the time to get to know them and discover their needs.

In your warm and friendly email, you have shown that you have a shared interest in their industry and have information that can be helpful to them.

Increase your B2B email click-through rate (CTR)

If your B2B marketing mailings were Tinder profiles, would your mailings get swiped right or left? Would people be interested in learning more, or would they move on to the next one?

If people are willing to swipe away a potential customer instantly, how much time do you think they will spend evaluating your marketing emails? Very little.

Find out more about: 4 copywriting tips for newsletter

Here are some strategies to consider to help you increase your CTR through B2B email marketing.

1. First, capture your readers with a captivating subject line.

   The obvious first step to increased click-through rates is to get subscribers to open your emails. If people never open your emails, they certainly won’t click on the links in the mailing. As with a good blog post, spending 10-25% of your writing time on the title is perfectly acceptable. Create it in a way that creates intrigue or urgency, so the reader feels compelled to click on it and read more.

2. Deliver consistently high-quality content.

   Nobody likes clickbait articles or emails. So if you’ve mastered the art of writing phenomenal email subject lines, but the email content doesn’t live up to its promise, it will take a little while for readers to stop clicking and instead send your emails straight to the trash or even cancels the subscription. Most of us have a few newsletters that we open regularly. The moment they arrive in our inbox, we stop what we’re doing and give them our full attention. Why? Because these emails deliver value – consistently.

   Ensure your newsletter content consistently surprises, impresses, and adds value to your subscribers. You’ll discover a never-ending flow of readers eager to read your content and pay attention to the recommendations you deliver.

3. End your email with a cliffhanger.

   Have you noticed how many TV shows end in the middle of an intense moment – leaving us all eager and anxious for next week’s conclusion, resolution, or big reveal? The same tactic can work in your emails. If you want a reader to click through to your site, provide enough information to pique their interest and engage them, but don’t give everything away. Instead, end with a “read more…” link or button they can click to read the rest of the story. That way, you’ll keep your B2B prospects warm—creating a deeper brand connection and gaining a loyal fan base.

Bonus CTR Increasing Tips:

• Use high-quality images to bring your emails to life and give your readers more context. Header images, videos, graphic banners, inspirational quotes or statistics, memes, and infographics are among the powerful visuals you can add to your B2B email marketing
• Create CTA buttons that stand out on the page and tell the reader what to do next. Adding your CTA to the bottom right of your emails usually produces the best results
• Add a postscript to your emails to direct your readers to other relevant offers, content, or information.

Analytical B2B email marketing tips to help you convert leads and earn more from potential sales.

Here are some other approaches you can use to improve your email marketing efforts for potential customers effectively.

Use automatic replies

Autoresponders (or email autoresponders) are gold regarding time efficiency and can be used to understand segmentation. By segmenting the different groups you’re emailing to, you can offer them additional information and services at other times of the week or month.

They’re great for creating a sense of urgency when building a launch sequence to sell a course or other time-sensitive service. You can increase the frequency and highlight discounted prices as you get closer to the date. However, ensure you only spam people a little if they are used to hearing from you often.

Autoresponders can also help with segmentation. This means dividing your traffic into separate groups based on their preferences and behaviors. So, for example, you can construct different sets of messages according to those who have signed up for monthly newsletters, weekly newsletters, and product updates.

Use data

Email is a great way to segment your traffic and monitor your analytics to get a sense of customer behavior, regardless of your industry or context. Most email providers will allow users to collect metrics at many levels.

The main metrics you’ll likely be interested in are CTR, open rate, and unsubscribes. Paying attention to the number of people (and segments) who unsubscribe can give you a lot of insight into where you can improve your campaign.

Share the test to choose the best one.

The beauty of email marketing is that you can test your subject lines and content with a small portion of your subscribers before sending your email campaign to your entire database.

All good email providers allow you to enter two subject lines or versions of a specific email to perform a user test on your behalf. Regardless of which subject line gets the most clicks and which email gets the most engagement, that’s the one you should send out to all relevant prospects.

Through split testing, you can gather intelligence (based on copy, content, images, design, color schemes, and layout) to optimize all your future communications for the best possible chance of driving B2B success.

Contact us directly and talk B2B email marketing with us. Email to sales@ungapped.com