When it comes to B2B, email marketing can be one of those things that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Yet the ROI on email marketing is very strong. According to Litmus, 35% of companies realize a return of $10 to $36 per dollar spent, and 79% of B2B marketers continue to expect email marketing to provide one of the highest ROIs among digital channels.

Email marketing in B2B differs significantly from B2C campaigns. The target group is smaller, the decision paths are longer, and the content is more complex. So, if you want your strategy to be successful, you’ve got to make sure it’s relevant, personalized, and automated. These best practices and tips will help you boost your B2B email performance.

What works in B2C isn’t always enough in B2B. While private consumers make quick, emotional decisions, in B2B there are often several people involved, budgets have to be approved, and purchasing processes are more rational and much longer. It’s not about price, but about the info, perks, and know-how.

You should structure your emails accordingly: Successful B2B content offers orientation, explains contexts and solves specific challenges instead of creating sales pressure. Anyone who communicates in B2B in the same way as in B2C will quickly fail to meet the expectations of their target group.

B2B is not just about closing a sale quickly. Rather, email marketing establishes long-term relationships by nurturing contacts over a longer period of time.

• Generate leads
• Build trust
• Support sales
• Retain customers in the long term

Email marketing ensures that your company presents the right content at the right time and accompanies interested parties along their customer journey from the first contact to the actual inquiry.

When it comes to B2B email marketing, the size of the recipient list isn’t the only important thing — the quality of the list is what counts. A company has different roles, ranging from strategic decision-makers to specialist departments and users. Each of these groups requires different information and an appropriate approach. Through segmentation, you can ensure that the right content reaches the right person. In general, personalized target group campaigns perform better than large, widely distributed newsletters.

• Industries and company size
• Positions and roles within the company
• Interests and previous interaction behavior
• Location of the company

In this email from Shopify, the recipient is immediately provided with a step-by-step checklist in addition to a welcome message for the trial version that explains how to set up a custom domain. This ensures that new B2B customers receive support right from the start.

A balanced mailing frequency ensures that your company remains present without overwhelming your recipients. The right timing is just as important: sending your newsletter at the right time increases the chance that it will be noticed and opened. The best way to find out the right sending time and frequency is to use the statistics in your reporting dashboard. They will also help you to evaluate your performance. The most important KPIs to help you improve your B2B email marketing include:

• Open rate
• Click rate
• Conversion rate/leads
• Unsubscribe rate
• Bounce rate

Email marketing in B2B works best when marketing and sales work closely together. Even the best lead is useless if it doesn’t reach sales. Marketing ensures reach, visibility and relevant content. Sales takes over as soon as genuine interest is evident. This saves time and avoids wastage.

A regular exchange between marketing and sales is crucial. It’s not just sales that benefits from this. Marketing also receives new empirical values from sales, such as the questions that customers really ask. The result is better leads and more efficient processes on both sides. By dovetailing sales and marketing, email marketing is not an isolated channel, but an integral part of the customer journey.

In B2B in particular, it is worth thinking of email marketing as part of the sales funnel. A typical example is making new contacts at trade fairs. Instead of trying to sell directly afterwards, a structured automation workflow accompanies new contacts step by step. This is what a possible funnel could look like:

1. Making contact after the trade fair with a personalized thank you email and a brief introduction of the company including the USPs
2. Welcome email with reference to the trade fair and an initial case study
3. Further emails with real added value such as possible solutions to problems or the offer of demo appointments for your product
4. Handover to sales as soon as genuine interest is evident

In this way, your company remains present without creating sales pressure and sales gets involved when the contact is ready.

Pure sales emails only work to a limited extent in B2B. It’s much better to provide useful content that has real value and supports, explains, and provides guidance.

This includes, for example:

• White papers
• Studies and reports
• Practical guides and how-to articles
• Checklists and templates
• Webinars or recordings
• Experience reports and case studies from the field
• Industry insights and trend analyses

Tip: In the subscription process, ask directly about preferences so you can send your recipients content that really interests them.

Decision-makers often have little time and full inboxes. Successful B2B emails should therefore be short and to the point. Structure your newsletter well with suitable headlines, short paragraphs and clear messages.

In addition, use links to your website with detailed information instead of long email texts. With personalized content and automation workflows, you can guide your recipients in a more targeted manner and lead them through the often lengthy B2B purchasing process.

The Miro newsletter outlines the highlights of a keynote and encourages readers to watch it. It then presents an idea for using the tool and showcases some new features.

Possible approaches that are particularly suitable for B2B:

• Personal contact person
  Emails appear more trustworthy if you name a fixed contact.
• Clear call-to-action
  A clear statement with a direct call to action should be placed in the top third of the email.
• Dynamic content
  Depending on the segment, industry examples, offers or call-to-actions are adapted.
• Simple design
  In B2B practice, simple, personal emails usually work better than elaborately designed newsletters. However, it is important to always stick to the corporate design in order to create a consistent brand image. With the help of A/B testing, you can find out which design is best received by your own recipients and the respective segments.

Automations help to send the right content at the right time without manual follow-up. In B2B, they therefore enable significantly more efficient email marketing processes.

• Welcome email for new leads
• Follow-ups after downloading a white paper
• Lead nurturing over a longer period of time
• Reactivation emails for inactive recipients

Used correctly, automations ensure that no lead is lost and that every email fulfills a clear purpose.

Email marketing is also not permitted in B2B without consent. As in B2C, the sending of promotional emails is only possible with prior consent. The only exception for existing customers is regulated by Section 7 (2) No. 2 UWG.

This is the safest and recommended option for legally compliant address acquisition. Legal certainty not only protects you from warnings, but also strengthens the trust of your contacts. With the GDPR-compliant CleverReach newsletter tool from Germany, you are directly on the safe side.

Good email marketing in B2B doesn’t feel like advertising, but like a meaningful exchange. Those who understand their target group, segment it correctly and provide it with real added value, as well as dovetail marketing and sales sensibly, use email for targeted lead nurturing and building long-term customer relationships.

For B2B email marketing to work in everyday business, you need a reliable tool. CleverReach supports you with high deliverability, numerous integrations, helpful automations and seamless GDPR compliance.

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