Direct marketing to your prospective customers is an important part of the business-to-business (B2B) marketing mix. And, one of the most important tactics is email marketing.
If you know the businesses and organisations you’d like to become your next customers, then emails can help put what you do in front of them. Emails are also a strong way to nurture existing relationships and get more value from existing clients.
However, an email has little impact unless it is opened. And, it rarely helps boost business unless the recipient clicks through to your website or other information!
So, how can you increase those all-important open rates and click-through rates to ensure your email marketing results in new clients and sales?
Let’s take a look at each objective in turn…
Firstly, how can you improve your email open rates?
Just to clarify, an email’s open rate is the percentage of recipients who open a specific email, compared to the total number of emails delivered.
Most email marketing software considers an email to be opened when the recipient loads any images and/or clicks on a link.
a) Optimise your subject line
When we receive an email in our inbox we typically see the senders name, the subject line (title) and perhaps a few words of the opening line or salutation.
Therefore, whether we open the email and read further is entirely dependent on these elements. At this point, what is written or displayed in the email is somewhat irrelevant!
Keep the subject line short and to the point, ideally under 6-8 words. Depending on the recipient’s inbox view, they may not see a longer title anyway.
It is best to ‘tell not sell’. In A/B tests, email recipients are more likely to open an email which objectively describes its contents, rather than a wordy title which tries to hype-up the contents within!
As such, it’s typically best to avoid words like ‘free’, ‘buy now’, ‘great’, ‘amazing’ etc. These are also more likely to get caught in spam filters which look out for superlatives, hyperbole and excessive use of exclamation marks!!!
However, something you can do to increase the open rate is use action-oriented and curiosity-driven language, such as ‘get’, ‘unlock’ or ‘discover’.
Think about the preview line too (the first line of the actual email which may appear in the inbox preview). Try to make it either genuine (e.g. friendly) or intriguing, but do not give away too much of your email’s thunder!
b) Use a real sender name and email address
Recipients are understandably wary of emails from unfamiliar email addresses, generic email addresses and those which are incomprehensible.
Emails from a recognisable sender get higher open rates (e.g., “Sarah West | Full Mix Marketing”).
c) Personalise your mail content
Using the recipient’s first name, company and some reference to recent activity or past interaction (e.g. You recently downloaded our whitepaper…), can make your email feel more tailored.
If you’re using the recipient’s name, make sure it is correct. If you’re using a standard or plain email (rather than a newsletter or one which is graphically designed) a friendly opening comment (e.g. I hope you’re well) can put the recipient at ease.
d) Send at the right time
It’s often tempting to send emails whenever they are ready or convenient to you. However, the best time to send an email to maximise the open rate is when the recipient is more likely to have time to read it.
It perhaps goes without saying that the best time to send a business-to-business email is during office hours (9-5).
Avoid Mondays, as people are often busy catching up after the weekend. Avoid Fridays as people are often winding down for the weekend! The best open rates are thus typically achieved on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
It’s tempting to send emails early in the working day, as most recipients will check their email first thing. However, it runs the risk of being lost in an inbox full of more pressing matters.
To maximise your email open rate, the best times are typically late morning, before lunch between 10:30am and 12 midday – or after lunch between 1pm and 3pm, when many people return to their inboxes. After 3, people can again be winding down and a little less receptive.
Of course, this can differ if your recipients are shift workers, abroad or operate 24-7 – but it remains a good rule of thumb for initially maximising email open rates.
e) Clean and segment your email list
It may sound obvious but if you are sending your email in a scattergun way to many recipients, the open rate is likely to be lower than an email to a smaller and more targeted list.
It’s important to remove inactive subscribers and hard bounces (email addresses which no longer exist) to maintain a strong sender reputation. (However, bear in mind that spending time to ruthlessly reduce your recipient list in order to maximise your open rate won’t necessarily result in more enquiries or sales!)
You can also segment your recipient list by industry, job role or past engagement etc, to see the individual open rates.
Secondly, how can you increase your email click-through rate (CTR)?
Once your business-to-business email is opened (and hopefully read) the next desired outcome is a click through to your website, other information or an email or telephone link.
So, how can you design your email to increase the chances of someone clicking through?
a) Make sure your content is relevant and engaging
Recipients are put off by lengthy emails. Keep the text and contents short, with no more than 3-4 short paragraphs. Avoid long sentences too.
Most emails are initially scanned by the reader, so use bullet points and subheadings to enhance its readability and make key information stand out.
Remember, a successful B2B email is not just about you, it’s about the recipient too! So, speak directly to your audience’s goals or pain points – the results or outcomes they’d like to achieve from purchasing your product or service!
b) Include a strong call-to-action (CTA)
To encourage recipients to click through to your website or other information, you need to include a persuasive statement and a clear place to click.
Action-based CTAs, such as ‘Find out more’, ‘Download our guide’ or ‘Book a demo’ can work well.
In emails including graphs, use buttons instead of plain links for higher visibility.
c) The rule of three!
There is evidence that people are more likely to click on a button or link if there are three options to choose from! Something about the choice encourages humans to act.
A few clear options with differing outcomes will often increase the click-through rate compared to a single button or link which requires everyone to follow the same path!
d) Visual elements or plain text?
When most of us think of B2B emails, we tend to think of newsletters or promotional emails with a designed or graphical element.
High-quality images help grab attention and communicate information quickly. Make sure you include suitable blank area or white space so the email does not appear cluttered or busy.
However, there is also a role for plain or standard business emails which – even to a large database – replicate a personal email from an individual at your company. They can appear more genuine and create a greater response.
e) Mobile optimisation is key
Even with business-to-business emails, over 50% will be opened on a mobile devise, so make sure your email is dynamic and use large, tappable buttons to encourage click-through.
Testing, testing, one, two, three…
Following the advice above will help many marketers to increase the open and click-through rates of their B2B emails.
However, every audience is different and something which works for one may be less effective for others. Therefore, it is good to A/B test different formats and content to see which works best for your company.
Differing subject lines, imagery, focus and CTAs can all provide valuable intelligence on what works best.
Support to increase the open rate and click-through rate of your email marketing
At Full Mix Marketing, we’re a full service B2B marketing agency, specialising in delivering the full mix of strategic, digital and creative marketing for companies and organisations who provide products or services business-to-business (B2B).
We deliver direct and email marketing for many clients, in sectors including manufacturing, engineering, technology, logistics, construction and business services.
If you’d welcome support to use or improve email marketing, we’d like to help.
More information can be found here