Targeted email marketing to increase sales leads
Let’s cut to the chase.
It’s no hidden fact that email marketing is one of the oldest, most reliable, and cost-effective tools of marketing. It has a staggering return of $38 for every $1 spent, making it a 3,800% ROI.
However, a few things have changed around emails (for the better), and carpet bombing an email list is one of them! As a business, you would know that sending generic, cold mass emails is an archaic practice and will likely garner a spammer’s reputation.
Today is all about curating personalized emails and sending them to a segregated and pre-defined list of recipients - in other words, the age of targeted email is upon us, and we bet it works!
Segmented campaigns can result in a 760% increase in revenue - now that’s a whopping figure you don’t want to miss!
So, What is Targeted Email Marketing?
To put in simple words, targeted email marketing is the practice of creating engaging/personalized emails focused on business-to-business channels. It includes the exchange of products, information, or services between two or more companies.
The essence of targeting lies in getting the desired response from the selected category of subscribers.
Interestingly, when leveraged correctly, businesses of every type and scale can improve their lead generation and sales chances through targeted emails.
By segregating the audience correctly, B2B companies can market their prospective targets and generate potential customers out of their mailing lists. You can use platforms like Klaviyo, MailChimp or HubSpot to do this at scale.
Listed below are the four most common segmentation areas to help you start with your own:
- Geographic [Based on the location, e.g., area, state, or country]
- Demographic [Based on gender, e.g., male, female, and others]
- Psychographic [Based on the like and interests of the subscribers]
- Behavioural [Based on the intent of your mailing database]
Thanks to their personalized approach, targeted messages are powerful and have more contextual relevance than over-generalized emails. Segmented, personalized, and targeted emails help generate 58% of all revenue and an average of 46% higher open rates.
The math is simple, “more personalized emails = more open rates and revenue.”
Email converts better than SEO, social media lead, and display ads combined! However, if you are still in a dilemma, it’s high time you become serious about email segmentation.
On the contrary, if you already know the power of targeted email marketing, this might guide you to hone your skills with the suggested tips to increase your sales leads via email marketing.
Tips to Increase Sales Leads via Targeted Email Marketing
Shorten your email content and keep it precise
In today’s fast-paced world, no reader has the time to go through lengthy emails to come across a subject. Modern consumers prefer crisp and short emails that can be consumed on the go. Reports suggest that emails with about 200 words had the highest clickthrough rates.
Being a B2B business, your emails cannot apply the odd off-topic strategy where you talk over and around the services you offer. You should rather focus on the actionable elements inside your email.
Moreover, don’t only run behind creating high-level content, but make sure that your content confirms what your buyers are looking for. Remember, “relevancy not lengthy.”
Grab attention with your email subject lines
Subject lines play an essential role in lead generation and have a significant role in influencing the open rates. In your next B2B campaign, try imbibing the sense of writing a subject line to someone with whom you’ve already established a relationship.
A catchy subject line with instances like “Hey! Our [product/service] has your name all over it” or “We miss you already!” can be constructive in grabbing the attention of your lead. On the other hand, anything that carries an essence of corporate-speak or marketing might face the wrath of the delete button.
To turn your next targeted email marketing campaign into a lead generating machine, keep a keen eye on the email subject. Your subject line should stay focused on the purpose of the mail throughout.
Remember, don’t make promises that you can’t deliver. If your subject line comes off like clickbait, chances are, you are hurting your reputation. Try keeping your subject line concise, short, and within 30-50 characters.
Keep your email list clean and updated
Having a clean and updated list of prospects can do wonders in your next triggered email marketing funnel besides helping you reach the right customer. You will often hear the lead gen professionals tell you that your best efforts will only yield results when paired with a quality list of prospects.
Sending emails to the right section of customers can help you generate healthy leads and ensure future buyers. While buying leads might sound easy, you should always refrain from doing so and focus on creating your personalized database. We advise you to segment audiences in your email list by the stage of the funnel they happen to be in.
For example, you could also reach out to your old subscribers with referral initiatives to improve your B2B sales leads. Or you could also segregate your lists based on the business focus of your leads.
Remember, the most crucial aspect of a list is quality information, both in terms of recency and accuracy.
Choose different entry points besides the target recipients
While you are preparing/shuffling your lead directory, it’s possible for you to identify several individuals of a company that could link you up with your potential target. Therefore, it is always a smart move to stay ahead of the curve and include every possible recipient that could lead you to your potential client.
For example, If you are trying to reach out to an IT company, you should always start with admin or sales. Similarly, let’s see an example of a vaguely addressed email.
“Hi Karen, Can you refer me to your manager in charge of the hiring process?”
In this example, if I’m not Karen, there are high chances that I will ignore this email. Moreover, since the email is only dedicated to me, I might not bother to address it to the right recipient in my company/firm.
However, things might be different when you try to keep other recipients of the same company/firm in the mail. A simple move, when done right, might generate a quality lead.
Remember, try targeting different points in a company based on their size and type. If you’re trying to target an IT-based company, your different entry points could revolve around the Director of IT, office manager, or even an IT consultant.
Set automated campaigns to stay in touch
Automation does a great deal in simplifying the entire process of sending emails across your batch of leads in the campaign. Sending personalized emails to every single customer can be a mammoth task when done manually. Not only does it hamper the productivity of the business, but it also reduces efficiency. Therefore, it is always advisable to have the right marketing tools in your inventory, to successfully integrate automated campaigns to your targeted audience from the email database.
Using automated software for your email campaigns has numerous advantages besides acing your campaigns effectively. Using MailChimp applications might sound like an excellent idea, but it can be a significant hit to businesses’ cash flow during such a pandemic.
We understand the costs that come involved with risking your business’s inventory; therefore, we suggest you try applications like ConvertKit and MailerLite to utilize the many benefits of email automation without hitting the extra mile on your business.
Define your specific business goal
It is critical for a business to be very specific about their specified goals while following an email campaign. Marketers often lose their campaign’s transition and focus when they push their potential leads further into the sales funnel.
Below is an acute example of a rough transition that might head its way to the spam box.
“While you’re already interested in our product X, would you like to discover these products in the Y division?”
Notice how the subject of the mail loses its focus and confuses the audience with the message. However, you can work on your emails’ transition by adding a seamless flow or introducing a different product or service over a new campaign with your existing leads.
Remember, the narrow and specific your focus, the more successful your campaign will be.
To Wrap Up
In an era where social media is the trend, emails continue to rule the marketing segment. According to suggested statistics, 60% of consumers affirm that their purchases result from a marketing message they received over email.
On the flip side, only 12.5% of the total customers consider clicking on the buy button present as a purchase driver over social media platforms. Targeted email marketing also influences around 81% of online sales.
It can be a risky trade if you haven’t integrated segmentation into your email marketing campaign already!
If anything, B2B content marketers need to balance the three elements in their emails: useful, engaging, and of high quality – even more precisely than B2C content professionals.
About the author
This post is written by Rohan Mendiratta. He helps marketers with building an engaged audience and increasing their sales via SendX: Email Marketing Software