Email Marketing: The B2B Marketer’s Loyal Hound

There a lot of different content mediums these days. Every couple of months or so we hear about a new social platform or the demise of an old one. Us marketers are always chomping at the bit to learn the newest trend, tool or trick so that we can say we’re at the forefront of the societal shift that these new content mediums are creating.

With all these young guns on the content marketing scene, it’s easy to forget about some of the older ones that have been hard at work for us all this time.

I’d like to focus some attention on those loyal and committed content mediums. Some may not think it as pretty as a podcast, as sexy as social media or as bodacious(?) as blogging, but no marketer could do what they do without it. The medium I’m speaking of is email.

Despite all the societal shift that is social media, the unique marker of a person’s online identity is still their email address. Every person in your CRM software wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for email.

The facts:

But email is more than a personal identifier: It’s still listed as the the single most effective tactic for awareness, acquisition, conversion, and retention. (Gigaom Research).

1) “What’s the ROI of email” you ask? Oh just a mere 4,300% return on investment for companies in the U.S.

2) Even with all these content channels sprouting up right and left, 59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue (BtoB Magazine).

3) For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44.25 (Exact Target).

4) Email is nearly 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers (Mckinsey&Company).

5) 95% of internet consumers use email (EmailExpert).

6) 95% of those who opt into email messages from brands find these messages somewhat or very useful (Salesforce).

So how do you make sure you’re getting the most out of email?

1) Design with mobile in mind – In Q1 of 2014, more email was opened on iPhones (38%) than all desktops combined (34%) (MoveableInk). Also, 64% of decision makers read emails via mobile device. (EmailExpert).

2) Segment your lists – Companies that use email list segmentation saw 39% higher open rates and 28% lower unsubscribe rates (Lyris Annual Email Optimizer Report).

3) Write good subject lines – The two biggest factors influencing open rates are the organization the email is from (64%) and the subject line (47%) (Chadwick Martin Bailey).

“Thank you” is the word with the highest subject line click through rate with a click through rate of 62% and

4) Include social sharing buttons – Emails with social sharing buttons increase click through rates by 158% (NonProfit Hub).

5) Use personalization – Personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates, but 70% of brands fail to use them (Experian).