Strategic email marketing for B2B companies

I felt compelled to write this article as so many people have the wrong idea about the way that email marketing works and how it can benefit your business. This is due to the fact that everyone seems to start with a newsletter. A newsletter can be a great tool to use for a company but I just don’t believe that it is the most beneficial place to start with your strategy.


A newsletter is a labour intensive way to begin with your strategy. This is because it  takes time to add numerous stories to a website or other landing page. Also there are a lot of newsletters around and it is hard to differentiate and win people’s attention.

Alternatively for B2B marketers I have seen some excellent email marketing being undertaken. Below I have included some examples of the content being pushed by three different types of company promoting a marketing SaaS product, a marketing agency and a training company. All three companies use a content strategy and free benefits to entice the people to sign up for the paid services.

 

Value added focussed email strategy

This can be an excellent strategy for promoting specific tools that you are selling to your audience. I have seen this with tools such as Ubersuggest and Spark Toro. Spark Toro uses emails containing stories of how current users use the product in order to generate campaigns and revenue for their current customers. This is great for notifying users how to get more from their product, it encourages use of the product and can help encourage the “freemium” users to move onto paid packages.

Also for people working for agencies often giving people key tips on how to undertake specific activities. For example the videos put out from Neil Patel, for his agency Neil Patel Digital, he gives tips on social media marketing, email marketing, SEO and many other digital marketing techniques. He then says “if you need help with implementing any of these tips get in contact with my agency”.

A third example of effective email marketing are those provided by Dr. Dave Chaffey and Smart Insights. The company provides training courses and resources for digital marketers. Signing up for their email newsletter is free and they give out samples to the free training and research that they provide. They also provide teasers and the opportunity to sign up for the paid content.

Personal brands and email marketing

All of these strategies are promoting very different marketing benefits – training, a SaaS product and an agency; yet all are based around giving value to the audience. The value is given for free but there is a reminder of the benefits of becoming a paying customer of the company. This is really consistent with what people expect from the world of digital marketing today. People become fans of the content and the people behind these brands, Neil Patel is a serial entrepreneur building numerous web based digital companies. He also has a strong social media following and spreads his content through these channels.

Likewise the owner of Spark Toro, Rand Fishkin, has been a prominent figure in the digital marketing world after starting the SEOMoz blog website back in 2004, which then progressed into the Moz SEO tool. He is active on social media and through his interviews and posts he has pushed his personal brand that has meant that followers are interested in the things that he has to say.

These personal brands have been built around providing value. This value is further enhanced through their email marketing strategy. This is the key to your email marketing strategy. Provide value, build reputation and tell people how you can help them. Follow this model to build your successful email marketing strategy.

If you need help with your email marketing strategy get in touch with Lucky Promotion.

Imagery by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

John is a data driven marketing specialist and website manager who lives in South East London. When he isn't blogging for us he manages Revenue and Marketing Operations for corporate clients.

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