Today we’re sharing Part 2 of our best practices for B2B email marketing to increase reader engagement and improve conversions to leads. These final 12 tips focus on conveying value in your email, building for accessibility, and last but not least, perfecting your Call to Action (CTA). Let’s get started.
Is your email valuable?
1. Value wins attention.
When your reader opens your email the first thing they do is what I call determining the “value exchange”. They scan your email to decide if spending a few seconds to see what you are offering is worth their time. If they value what you offer enough to exchange their time to read it, they read, otherwise they close and delete.
2. Keep your message short and sweet.
Whatever you’re offering, whether it’s content you want them to consume or a new service, your email must immediately articulate value to them – even if it is value in terms of entertainment that they get from continuing.
3. Eliminate unnecessary copy.
Specifically introductions and background information. Don’t bore them or waste their time explaining the reasons why you’re emailing them.
4. Make content easy to consume.
Make it EASY for your reader to consume what you are offering them with design that makes the message simple to process. Think large titles, lists and bullets, and bolding keywords.
Allow for Accessibility
5. Offer HTML and plain text.
When it comes to emails, one size does NOT fit all. Not every email provider displays your emails the same way, so you’ll want to prepare for every possibility. Providing an optimized plain text version of your email is one way to do that.
6. Add alt text to your images.
Some email providers automatically block images from appearing. In the event that your images do not or cannot load, including alt text ensures that the message you wanted the image to convey can still be seen by the user.
7. Include a link to view your email in their browser.
Not only does this option guarantee that recipients will be able to view your styled email as you intended it to look, but it also gives them the opportunity to save the link if it has important information that they want to revisit or share.
8. Preview and test.
Send tests and preview your email’s delivery on as many different browsers, devices, and email providers as possible to ensure that every recipient who opens the email, no matter where or how, has a good experience.
Call to Action
9. Use various styles.
Email CTAs are almost always programmed as buttons or as hyperlinked text. We recommend using both methods in your email; perhaps you will find one style works better than the other, but it can be beneficial to have both options available.
10. Be simple and aligned to the offer.
Make sure you have a simple call to action that aligns to the offer in the subject line and in the first part of your email. If recipients click your CTA and are brought somewhere completely unexpected, they will bounce immediately.
11. Bring the emotional benefit into the CTA.
Try bringing the emotional value of your offer into your CTA. Emotional value could be benefits like ending frustration, speeding things up, simplifying life, or bringing joy.
12. The click is your goal.
Don’t forget the entire goal is to get a click. The strength of your landing page and its ability to convert users into prospects is a different marketing effort. If you lose sight of your click goal, you will lose a chance to convert them to buyers on your landing page altogether.
That brings an end to our 24 email marketing tips for B2B tech marketers! In case you missed it, Part 1 is also available on our blog. We hope these tips have given you some ammunition for your next campaign – happy emailing!
