If you’re a marketing technology vendor today, you’ve got company — lots of it. Wondering just how much? Check out one of the recent MarTech landscape supergraphicsfloating around. Anyone feel like a needle in a haystack?
The glut of companies crammed into different categories (e.g. mobile, social, email, search, display, content marketing, analytics, etc.) all have something in common: everyone claims to help brands engage better with customers and prospects.
Email MarTech companies spend a lot of time advising brand marketers about how to send emails that drive opens, clicks and conversions. From optimized subject lines, to personalized content, to data analytics, there’s no shortage of thought leadership in the B2C realm.
But what about for B2B marketers?
There’s another thing every MarTech company has in common: they all use email to market to prospective brand clients. Sure, some sales are done by phone, but email is common for the first several touchpoints. Just like consumers have product choices, so do brands. Bad emails = lost opportunities.
This holds true for all MarTech companies: not just email insiders. If you’re a marketer selling software to another marketer, regardless of the vertical, you’ve got a high hurdle to clear (perhaps even more so than in B2C marketing). The truth is, marketers can smell BS a mile away.
B2B marketing is no place to bloviate, so here are a few things all B2B marketers should consider when it comes to email.
Communicate H2H. Just as consumers don’t like to get emails from faceless corporations, neither do marketers. I actually prefer the term H2H (human to human) than B2B. When your sales team emails prospects, or your marketing team creates content, speak like a human. Cut out the marketing jargon (it’s wasted on other marketers). Let the person on the other side know that as a marketer, you understand the real daily challenges he or she faces.
Consider different personas. Every B2C marketer segments and targets consumers differently. While high consideration products such as enterprise software may still follow a more linear sales funnel or path-to-purchase, B2B marketers still need to create and send emails based on each individual recipient. Think about the primary business concerns of the person you’re sending the email to, and how your software helps solve his or her problem. For a digital marketing tactician, this could be saving time or generating reports. For CMOs, it’s all about budgets and ROI.
Provide value before the hard sell. Chances are your marketing team is creating some good lead-gen content (e.g., ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, etc.). In that first initial email you send, consider simply providing some useful content that may or may not have anything directly to do with selling your product or platform. Again, think about the things that keep that particular brand marketer up at night, and send something that provides value. Nobody wants to respond to “Hi, we’re (fill in the blank). How about a demo?”
Use consistent messaging. Every brand has a story to tell — even MarTech companies. To tell your story in a cohesive way, the messages you send in email need to match everything else across your brand. Not every email that goes out needs to be templated. In fact, template emails are often feel stilted and impersonal. But messaging, tone, descriptions, etc. should stay consistent.
Leverage data. It’s no secret that marketers are becoming more and more data-driven. Overuse of data and statistics in an email can come off as dry, but when used within the context of a client success story or case study, data can come to life. Marketers are all concerned about ROI when it comes to technology investment, and if you can demonstrate how another brand boosted engagement and/or sales with your software, you’ll already be ahead of the curve.
B2B email marketing for MarTech companies can be challenging, but with the right approach and mindset, you can increase success. What’s your strategy? via here