Inbound Marketing Age

Editors note: This blog post was originally published in November 2011 and has since been updated for optimal relevance and accuracy.

95% of us check our email every day, sometimes up to 20 times a day. We're glued to our mobile phones, making it easy for us to have constant access to our emails. In fact, 28% of us check our work email whilst in the bathroom!

Despite whispers that email marketing dead, the reality is that it remains one of the best ways to attract and retain customers. It offers a highly efficient channel at the heart of inbound marketing for communicating with clients in a targeted, measurable and cost-effective way.

Why bother wasting precious resource on an email marketing campaign?

No one opens emails anymore. Everyone knows email is dead. 

Well, according to the stats, that’s all a fallacy.

Email is in fact, proliferating. Astonishingly.

DMA Insight shows that 95% of us check our email every day, sometimes up to 20 times.

Recently Adobe published their 2018 Consumer Email Survey based on research by Advanis. Whilst this was US-based research, we know that historically there are many similarities between the US and UK markets.

The survey contains a number of fascinating insights, including the astonishing fact that 28% of respondents check their work email whilst in the bathroom! Not sure how relevant that is to any campaign you might think of running, but it's an interesting insight nonetheless.

But wait, isn’t email marketing dead?

Email was the pinnacle of nineties marketing. Transforming mass communication when it became free and available to all, email revolutionised how we reach our customers.

Nowadays, we have access to free social media, targeted banner advertising, Google ads, pay-per-click. You get the picture.

Crafting beautiful emails full of useful content and calls to action is not enough on its own. If your emails do not get opened, you are wasting your time.

Getting the recipient to make that first click and start reading is the key to a successful B2B inbound email marketing campaign.

You might think that the subject line is the main reason people open your emails, and indeed 47% of subscribers say this is the primary reason; however, a much larger percentage – 64% – say that who it is from is the biggest factor.

What this means is that the sender address and branding are very important. Make sure that the sending address includes your web domain so that recipients can recognise it. And as I wrote in an earlier post, make it a real person – research shows that this performs better than a generic email address.

Despite all the new digital channels, social networks and message systems that have emerged over the past ten years, good old-fashioned B2B email marketing still remains one of the most effective ways of engaging with your buyers, attracting new prospects and retaining customers. As a marketing tool B2B email returns an excellent ROI – which is readily measurable – unlike many other marketing channels. It’s usage is still growing with an estimated 3 billion users worldwide by 2020.

But like so many other things, it only works if it is done well. And with increasing competition within recipient’s inboxes, it increasingly needs to be done very well.

With General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) looming, compliance is also more important than ever.

In this article we look at some essential tips to help you optimise your email marketing, and ensure you are compliant.

Creative. Challenging. Dynamic. Relentless. Exhausting...

Just some of the words you might use to describe your B2B marketing role.

And, as you know, a successful marketer is one who is willing to learn and adapt to satisfy the needs of both prospects and customers.

In 2017, we’re slap bang in the middle of a period of disruption. Skill sets that might’ve propelled you to the top ten years ago could be now obsolete. Equally, if you don’t invest and expand your knowledge, business will begin to suffer in the race against political, economical and digital advancements.

Below we outline the top three B2B marketing challenges in 2017 and how you can put a plan into action to prioritise, tackle and wipe these off the to-do list, leaving you free to sleep easy again.

Despite the hype around social media, messaging apps and other newer forms of marketing communications, email is still an effective marketing channel. Providing your prospects have signed up for it, email still has the power to engage with clients and prospects as well as any other medium.

But like any marketing channel, it’s only valid when you are doing it right. Get email marketing wrong, you run the risk of losing not only prospects, but also your existing customers. Email marketing has great potential to irritate and annoy if is unwanted or unhelpful. There are few things people loathe more than spam. And spam is not just unsolicited emails, it’s any email that wastes the recipient’s time.

Creating useful, timely content for your prospective clients and customers is essential in today’s inbound marketing landscape. Prospects are actively researching products and services and seeking information about problems and solutions. When you are composing emails for professional services there are some important principles to work to. Keep these in mind and you will create better, more effective content.

On the 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaces the existing Data Protection Act (DPA). New regulations under the GDPR are intended to strengthen and unify data protection while protecting individuals residing in the EU. The GDPR expects companies to understand the risks they create when handling and using data while building a culture of privacy.

The good news is, if you’re already following principles stated within the DPA, transition should be easy.

Newsletters often get a bad rap - we’ve all received boring ones that fail to offer any useful information and provide "updates" on topics about which we neither know nor care. But, believe it or not, newsletters don't have to be tedious.

In fact, email is still a powerful weapon in your inbound marketing arsenal. They can help you to nurture leads and delight customers, by providing useful information that answers their questions, solves their problems, and generally piques their interest. Regularly sending out informative and usefulcontent can strengthen the relationships you have with the people that need or are already using your product or service.

But where do you start? How do you come up with engaging newsletter content that doesn't bore the socks off your readers? If you're stuck for email newsletter ideas, here are three easy ones to get you started:

Email is one of the most successful inbound marketing tools at your disposal. Done right, it can help you to nurture leads and turn them into customers - and, of course, it can delight current customers too. But it’s also very easy to approach email in the wrong way.

Think about your own inbox. It’s likely that it’s filled with lots of emails that you find irrelevant, unconvincing or just downright boring.

These negative reactions could be due to a number of reasons: the sender contacts you too often; the content is not compelling; or perhaps you’re no longer interested in the brand. So, perhaps you open an email and then decide not to read it; maybe you delete it straight away; or you might even unsubscribe from the mailing list altogether.

Safe to say, these are precisely the kind of actions that you don’t want your business’ audience to take. But what can you do to ensure as many people as possible open your emails, read them - and, then, respond to your call-to-action?

As an inbound marketer, how can you send effective emails? 

Email is easy, right? You design your campaign, your content is penned and you have included the offers that you want to highlight to your contacts, and now it’s time to hit send. No, not quite yet!

Done well, B2B email marketing is a highly efficient and cost-effective means of generating new revenues, repeat business and stronger relationships with your clients. But done badly, as we all know, it is an area of marketing that is shrouded with risk: risks around your reputation as a purveyor of interesting, useful content ("that link is broken"); risks around your spoiling your relationship with your clients ("my inbox is drowning…!"); risks around your relationship with ISPs – with the danger of being black-listed if you are sending large volumes to an un-opted-in mail -  the worst outcome here.

So, how can you ensure that the emails you send do not fall foul of these inherent hazards, and achieve the engagement, interest and response that you desire?

We would all like an easier life, right? And for us B2B marketers, working in a digital world that is in a constant state of evolution, we would dearly love someone to guide us in the right direction, ensure we weren’t making mistakes, offer the advice and expertise we need as we venture forth.

Let us do exactly that then by offering you 8 infographics from the world of B2B online marketing that provide knowledge and useful guidance to make life easier for the marketer - from social etiquette to SEO copywriting to online testing.  In each case below, we've given you a snapshot image - just click on it to view the full infographic.

But here’s a thing, the CSI guy smells a rat and the Coroner says she’s found a pulse! Holy schmoley, there’s life in the old dog yet it would seem.

But what are these newsletter ideas that still work?

The way things were way back when

Newsletters appeared in the 16^th century, pre-dating newspapers which were first published in the 17^th. The first newsletter was circulated in England in the 1630s and featured stories about locals residing overseas. (Hhmm, human-interest stories, I wonder if that might work today?)

Fast-forward a few hundred years and there are thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of newsletters, magazines and newspapers, and we’ve not even got as far as the Internet age yet.

Then Sir Tim gets inventive and before you know it there is more content published every two days than was published from the dawn of civilisation until 2003.

So, your business has developed a decent contact mailing list, which is now receiving your B2B email marketing campaigns and eNewsletters.  And you’re having some success with email open rates, but why aren’t your contacts clicking through to the content, or events, or product information you’re promoting?  The fault often lies in the ineffectiveness of your Calls to Action.

What can you do to remedy the situation? Here are our Top Ten ways to create calls to action (CTAs) that will work for your emails and your customers:

With a new survey from the DMA suggesting customer approval ratings for email marketing are at an all time high, your B2B email marketing should be able to achieving the same level of satisfaction with your audience. But with stiff competition for space in your customers’ inboxes, how do you ensure that your email marketing is successful?

Effective B2B email marketing hinges on three main challenges: finding your customers, getting them to opt-in, and keeping them opted-in after that.  In a nutshell, “find them, catch them, keep them”.

The best way to do this by creating email marketing templates which are customised for your company and designed to appeal to the relevant personnel in the companies you are attempting to reach. Don’t just use generic downloaded templates, unless you want your brand to come across as generic and dull.  With this in mind, here are a few key dos and don’ts to consider when creating an email marketing template.

One of the biggest challenges of any content marketing strategy for B2B businesses is the need to regularly come up with new ideas which will engage both existing and potential clients. Whether you’re compiling your latest email newsletter or thinking up new posts for your business’ blog, here are a few suggestions and tips for topic choices which may help.

Current events and news related topics – Keep a close eye on new developments relevant to your sector, in the mainstream press, trade journals and other sources. Google’s ‘news’ search feature can be particularly useful for finding stories that you can report on in your blog or eNewsletters.

Commentary on key issues – Articles which are similar to newsy posts, but with an emphasis on providing your own unique take on important developments and trends. Such articles can be instrumental in emerging as a ‘thought leader’.

In today’s technology-driven marketing environment, every business needs to consider how new media publishing can reach and influence their customers and prospects.

Newsletter ideas for regular, interesting and informative publications can help you to forge and maintain professional relationships. They can increase your visibility, enhance your reputation and position you are a leader in your field.

But there are a number of new media publishing formats to consider including blogs, vlogs, email, podcasts, web based publications, and mobile apps. Knowing the right new media publishing format is an important consideration.

Newsletters have always been an effective way to promote your business, but the explosion of social media and content marketing has made them more valuable than ever.

Here are some newsletter ideas that will get your company noticed.

• Distribute by email and see exactly who is engaging with your content

• Test across major email clients before sending (Litmus is a great resource) and avoid problems with rendering

It's not always easy making the case for outsourced email marketing.  You may hear that it's too expensive, time-consuming, or even unnecessary.  But these are the very reasons why your business should consider it.

Whether you're raising the topic for the first time or making yet another pitch, if you're making the case for outsourced email marketing, meet your business's concerns head-on by showing why they're unfounded.

"Email marketing isn't a big priority."

Maybe it wasn't before, but it should be now.

Email marketing is a powerful way of reaching customers and should be one of the top tools in your marketing armoury. A recent report by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) confirms this fact, and reveals that their effectiveness is continuing to grow.

The DMA’s Email Benchmarking report for the second half of 2010 shows that the number of email click-throughs in the UK rose by 33% on the previous year, increasing from 12m to 16.1m.

The report also revealed that many businesses increased their spending on email marketing during the final quarter of the year, with a third increasing their email budgets by up to 40%.

Email marketing is a cost-effective, efficient marketing tool and when done properly, it can be highly effective. However, like any form of digital marketing, there are potential pitfalls. The following should be avoided at all costs:

1) Unauthorised sending
You cannot email someone without his or her permission. The Information Commissioner's Office advises that a 'soft opt in' should meet the following conditions:

• Where you've obtained a person's details in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale of a product or service;
• Where the messages are only marketing similar products or services; and
• Where the person is given a simple opportunity to refuse marketing when their details are collected, and if they don't opt out at this point, are given a simple way to do so in future messages.