The B2B sales cycle can be long and daunting, requiring your marketing strategy to include additional nurturing efforts to maintain communication between your company and prospective leads.
So, how do you successfully maintain communication with your leads without wasting time contacting each lead one by one?
Email automation!
Email automation allows you to send the right message to the right person at the RIGHT time! Email automation takes more tedious tasks off your hands so more effort and resources can be put into more important business efforts.
Anyone can create an email automation campaign, but what works and what doesn’t?
As a B2B digital marketing agency, we have those answers!
Keep reading to find out the 5 secret email automation practices from a B2B digital marketing agency.
1. Use email automation for TOFU marketing
In B2B, the buying process is a bit different and more involved than in B2C. When someone is looking for a B2B product, there tends to be a lot more research involved.
As a B2B digital marketing agency, we know how important it is to take advantage of this research stage. Creating TOFU content such as lead magnets, whitepapers, and ebooks, allows you to get in front of your target audience and educate them on your service or offering in exchange for their email.
Now, those who downloaded your lead in product obviously have a need for your offering. But it’s up to you to provide them with useful information they need in order to convert.
That is what makes all the important difference and adds value to the relationship with your customers.
Tip: Keep these emails short, to the point, and engaging.
2. Set up autoresponder emails
Responding to your leads/contacts as soon as possible is crucial for building and nurturing a potential relationship. Studies show that autoresponder emails achieve a 98% open rate and 37% click-thru rate.
There should ALWAYS be an autoresponder for website forms, lead magnet downloads, and subscriptions. Setting up a simple autoresponder email lets your contact know you have received their message and gives them the reassurance they need.
As a B2B digital marketing agency, we have seen that an autoresponder email can make all the difference when it comes to connecting with your potential customers!
3. Send emails to non-opens
We’ve all missed emails before. Not one sending time will work for everyone on your email list. Creating a resending campaign can help increase your open rate and get your message in front of those who may have missed it.
Using an email automation tool to send to non-opens can highly increase your overall open rate and provide more opportunities for closed deals.
Think about it this way, If your open rate for a re-sent email is similar to the rate for the first email, that means you’ve almost doubled your open rate!
And all by using content you already had! (With a different subject line, of course)
Disclaimer: Due to Apple’s Mail Privacy Policy Protection, Apple Mail user open rates may be skewed or inaccurate. Learn more here.
4. Create behavior-triggers
Behavior triggers in email automation follow a simple ‘if – then’ logic sequence baked on the actions of your leads.
As a B2B digital marketing agency, we use behavior triggers in many email automations.
- An action can be triggered by:
- Adding someone to a list
Someone opening an email - Someone clicking a link in an email
- And much more!
If you are nurturing leads down the funnel and they finish certain automation, you can use behavior triggers to bring them to the next phase.
Examples:
Is the contact in [X] list?
If Yes – End automation
If No – Add to list
Did the contact click the email?
If Yes – Send this email
If No – Add to another automation
Behavior triggers are the key to sending the right message to the right person at the right time. The action automatically streamlines your marketing campaign. Which all B2B marketers can benefit from!
5. Understand your customer’s journey
In order to create a successful email automation marketing campaign, you must understand your customer’s journey and the touchpoints needed.
Your customer’s needs aren’t static. Instead, they involve the more they interact with your brand. Your automated campaigns should reflect this by delivering your contacts with the right content for the stage they’re at to help them move through the funnel.
Begin by developing a customer journey map, which is a visual representation of all the touchpoints a customer has with your company. This will help you in determining what customers should receive what and when allowing you to build out your automation workflows.
All in all, email automation eliminates the need for manual work, allowing you to tend to more valuable business concerns while successfully nurturing your leads down your sales funnel.
But just setting up email automations won’t guarantee conversions. You need to follow best practices in order to successfully grab the attention of your prospects and make them take action!
Want more awesome insights on email marketing? Check out our resource library.
In need of PERSONALIZED advice on your business’s email automation tactics? Schedule a FREE strategy session with us, a B2B digital marketing agency and we’ll give you personalized insights on your B2B email efforts.
