image credit: stoatphoto/shutterstock.com
For b2b marketing, generating leads is only half the challenge when attracting attention to your business and brand. Without proper lead nurturing strategies, your leads won’t see the same value from your brand overtime. Worst of all, they may feel neglected!
Email marketing is essential for building lasting relationships with leads and reigniting an interest in your brand from previously disengaged leads. Here are four b2b email marketing strategies you can follow to nurture your leads and exceed their expectations.
1. Show leads your creative side with your email design
Whether it’s adding more video content or images, your emails can benefit from a visual overhaul. Much like your brand’s personality and image, subscribers will expect similar attributes from your emails. This can come from a short video clip or GIF in your informative emails, or with clickable button CTAs.
However, you don’t want to include too much flair in your emails; you don’t want your emails to be marked as spam. To prevent this, keep exclamation points to a minimum and avoid using emojis or similar characteristics.
It’s also recommended to include occasional plain text emails because some leads may prefer a simplified format. You can use A/B testing to try different email styles and headlines. This will also prevent your email templates from feeling repetitive to leads.
2. Keep your emails interactive, while providing valuable content offers
Links to downloadable software and trials — such as HubSpot’s marketing software or Dropbox — are a strategic way to provide value in your emails. For example, some of your leads may be content writers that are interested in Grammarly to avoid grammatical and syntax errors. HubSpot demos, in particular, are a common bottom-of-the-funnel offer that you can showcase to your clients.
Cookies can pull information from emails, then bring the data to your business’s website. This allows for an improved user experience with content and ads related to their interests and needs. Data is also kept organized, making it easier for marketers to store prospect information.
Interactive content from CTAs can be encouraging for your contacts, prompting them to make a decision regarding your service. This includes downloadable ebooks, social media links, or your company’s app download for IoT devices.
3. List segmentation keeps your email content personalized
You can keep leads organized with collected data based on demographics or the content they consume. Depending on their interactions with your email — such as clicking an image or CTA — you can customize future emails to fit their preferences.
Observe when leads are interacting with your business’s website and content so you can customize emails based on behavioral analytics. Interactions on you website may include clicking links and CTAs, or downloading infographics and ebooks.
If you’re sending an email to a specific lead, you can strategize the way you use certain CTAs, images, and even phrasing to meet their preferences. See what type of content they view the most — such as how-to lists or industry insights — and match the tone of those articles and blogs with your email content.
4. If you’re still unsure about your email marketing strategy, ask your leads!
Developing a strong email marketing strategy for lead nurturing takes time, with plenty of moments that may feel like trial and error. Even A/B testing might not always get you the results you were hoping for. This is where it pays to establish communication with your leads and ask for feedback.
Provide emails that pose questions for feedback from your leads. One of the more common ways to gain feedback is through surveys. These can be accessed via a link in your email and may ask them about whether or not they:
- Prefer emails with color and images, or plain text
- Typically open emails through mobile or desktop
- Would like to be notified about more updates from your business
- Have experienced any email rendering issues on mobile devices
Thinkdm2 is a New Jersey digital marketing and branding agency that provides clients with the strategies they need to reach their b2b marketing goals. To find more lead nurturing and generation tactics, visit our blog for additional content.
