B2B Email Marketing Practices: Which Ones Matter and Which Ones You Should Kick to the Curb
Email marketing for B2B companies is far from stagnant. It continues to be one of the most effective channels for driving revenue, boasting an estimated $42 return for every $1 spent (Source: Litmus). But with rapid technological advancements, shifting user behaviors, and growing data accessibility, what worked yesterday might not yield the same results today.
Email marketers must stay informed about which practices still deliver value and which need to be updated or discarded entirely. In this post, we’ll explore the evolution of email marketing, highlight current best practices, and which outdated tactics to leave behind.
Practices That Still Matter
Several game-changing trends have emerged over the last few years, and some traditional tactics have become more critical than ever.
Hyper-Personalization – Beyond Just a Name
Hyper-personalized emails that consider a recipient’s industry, location, or past interactions are essential for driving higher engagement. Today’s consumers expect tailored experiences, and email marketing should deliver. Dynamic content that changes based on customer behavior, preferences, or past purchases can increase open and click-through rates by up to 20% (Source: Campaign Monitor).
Segmentation for Relevance
By dividing your audience into meaningful segments based on behavior, demographics, or past interactions, you increase the chances of sending relevant content that resonates. Segmented emails can boost open rates by 14.31% and click-through rates by 100.95% (Source: Mailchimp). A less utilized but effective practice is to cut your audience lists into smaller groups by removing the low-engagement qualifiers. This can boost your success metrics (and brand reputation) by focusing your email tactics on recipients with a proven, consistent engagement history.
Mobile Optimization
According to the Litmus 2023 Email Engagement Report, over 41% of email opens occur on mobile devices globally, and 50% of consumers delete emails that aren’t mobile-friendly (Source: Adobe Email Usage Study); optimizing your emails for mobile is non-negotiable. Ensure your emails are responsive, with easy-to-read text and quick-loading visuals, so you don’t risk alienating a significant portion of your audience.
Pro-Tip: Marketers can get so caught up in vanity metrics and conversions that they sometimes forget that things like IP Reputation, Google Sender Scores, and general inbox placements and percentages can significantly impact and inhibit the success of even the most well-thought-out emails and campaigns by preventing them from reaching the intended recipients’ inboxes. Do not overlook these metrics; you should monitor them more closely.
Practices You Should Kick to the Curb
Not all email marketing trends have aged well. For instance, email design and strategies that worked five or ten years ago may now be ineffective or detrimental to your campaign’s success. Here are a few practices to reconsider:
Batch-and-Blast Emails
The practice of sending the same generic email to your entire list—also known as “batch-and-blast”—has seen its day. As inboxes become more cluttered, recipients are ignoring these impersonal emails. Sending non-targeted emails can result in 20% lower engagement rates. Instead, invest in segmentation and automation for more targeted communication.
Overly Fancy Design
While eye-catching visuals can help emails stand out, overly complex designs—especially ones with heavy images or slow-loading content—can hurt user experience. Simple, well-designed emails with clean layouts tend to perform better, with 20% higher engagement rates than those with excessive visuals (Source: Litmus 2022 Email Performance Study).
Neglecting A/B Testing
Email marketing constantly evolves; without consistent A/B testing, you’re missing opportunities to optimize. Regular testing of subject lines, call-to-action (CTA) placement, and content formats can help increase conversion rates. Brands that conduct regular A/B testing see a 50% increase in revenue (Source: HubSpot). Importantly, don’t forget to do ongoing analysis, repeat these tests, and compare the results over time to help dial in on subtle trends that may not be obvious after one test. Consistent testing is key.
Pro-Tip: Companies can balance staying top-of-mind and avoiding subscriber fatigue by pairing intentional, targeted, and engaged audience segmentations and lists with relevant email content that uses personalized messaging. However, there will always be factors entirely outside your control that impact open rates – what day of the week it is, if Mercury is retrograde, or even what is happening in the world. These will play a part in how responsive email audiences are and how receptive they are to being emailed a little more vs. a little less. Companies should consider these outside factors when determining frequency and be flexible in their sending strategies when it makes sense.
Emerging Trends to Keep an Eye On
The future of email marketing is bright, with exciting new trends emerging that promise to drive higher engagement and conversions.
Interactive Emails
Adding interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or embedded videos within your emails can drastically increase engagement. Gamification has been shown to increase average order value by 15% (Source: Salesforce).
AI-Driven Personalization
AI transforms email marketing by enabling real-time personalization based on user behavior and preferences. From dynamic subject lines to customized recommendations, AI-driven emails can improve relevance and timing, which boosts engagement.
AMP
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is revolutionizing email interaction. It allows marketers to create emails with live, interactive content (like forms or carousels) so subscribers don’t have to leave the email to take action. This trend is still emerging but could be a game-changer for specific industries.
Now is the time to take stock of your email marketing strategy
While classic best practices like personalization and segmentation are still crucial, embracing new technologies like automation, AI, and interactive content is the key to staying ahead of the curve. At the same time, it’s essential to reevaluate outdated strategies that are no longer effective. Marketers can future-proof their email campaigns by focusing on data-backed practices, embracing emerging trends, and keeping engagement high.
Which of these best practices are you still following, and which outdated techniques should you leave behind?