3 No-Nonsense Steps to Becoming a Great B2B Email Marketer

Your goal as a B2B email marketer is to present the most targeted, benefits-driven messaging to convert leads into closed opportunities that will ultimately generate revenue for your company. In order to do your job effectively, you need to know your audience, be a product expert and think strategically on how you connect your target audience with important product information.

I’ve found that the fastest way to learn anything is through the internet and through people. Gain the information and expertise you need to be a great B2B email marketer by reaching out to the right people in your organization. These gatekeepers have the true insight, experience and information you need to create relevant messaging and to strategically segment your emails.

Sales professionals, engineers and IT experts have a wealth of knowledge for you to leverage when developing a thoughtful strategy and value-added B2B content that resonates with your target audience.

Step One: Get to Know Your Audience

As a marketer, you have a pretty good understanding of the personas, industries and demographics of your database and target audience. This allows you to offer high-level messaging that aligns with the wants and needs of your audience. But in order to be truly great at B2B email marketing, you have to understand the day-to-day needs of your audience

Product specialists, engineers and sales representatives are familiar with the wants, needs and concerns your customers have and understand what motivates them to make a purchasing decision.

Don’t assume that you know your target audience based on digital interactions and data alone. Reach out to the people in your organization who actually interact – in real life – with your audience during the purchasing process to understand what they care about and why. Plus, these people likely communicate with customers after a purchase is made and can tell you about customers’ feelings post-purchase. Once you understand who is buying your product and why, knowing the combination of features and benefits that different personas or segments care about is the next step.

Step Two: Become a Product Expert

Often, the products and services sold in a B2B setting are more complex, advanced and expensive than typical B2C products. Because of this, your audience needs to know how your product is going to solve their problems and how it adds value to their business. Product specialists, engineers and sales representatives are product gatekeepers because they build, design and service the solutions you are marketing.

So before you start churning out vague and flowery marketing language about your product or service, consider asking your organization’s gatekeepers about the specific features that make your company’s solution the best on the market. What benefits does your product offer the user and how does that enable them to do their job better? At the end of the day, B2B purchase decisions are made based on the utility and problem-solving capabilities of your product, not on how catchy your subject lines are.

Step Three: Don’t Miss the Point

As a B2B email marketer, don’t lose touch with the fact that you are emailing actual people. I know that sounds ridiculous, but to this day, I am surprised by the number of B2B and B2C email campaigns I see that totally miss the point. Your contacts are not just leads, they’re human beings and everyone likes to be acknowledged, to feel special and to be communicated with, not at.

Treating your contacts like people and thoughtfully contacting them with messaging relative to their individual needs, wants and unique buying process is the most effective way to push leads further down the sales funnel.

An example of this would be to have a new subscriber campaign that rolls out a personal and informative welcome campaign for your top-of-funnel contacts. First impressions matter in real life and they matter in email. Consider taking note from the gatekeepers in your organization so that your digital interactions become just as valuable and impactful as interactions with an expert.

Leveraging your expert product knowledge and deep understanding of your audience as they move through the sales funnel will help guide your overall B2B email marketing strategy. Breaking down the age old “sales vs marketing” mindset and collaborating to create content that supports your company’s sales processes is the key to becoming a great B2B email marketer. Marketing should be an extension of the sales process, not a hindrance. Because at the end of the day, your job is to present the right information to the right people so that they convert and close deals that contribute to the bottom line of your company. After all, we all like to get paid and no one cares about pretty emails if they’re not effective.

Need a hand with your email marketing strategy? We can help. Contact us today to learn how we can take your B2B email marketing strategy from good to great.

Updated: Nov 15, 2024