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Six best practices when creating an email marketing campaign in the industrial sector

Email campaigns are a key component of your strategy for generating sales leads. However, creating an effective email campaign requires careful planning, especially when you consider that a professional in the B2B sector receives an average of 40 emails per day, including 10 advertising emails!

If you want to make sure your emails are read, you should follow these 6 best practices to create an effective email campaign for the industrial sector.

 

1. The name and the address of the sender

Let’s start at the beginning. The name and address of the sender are the first things that recipients see when they receive your email.
These two elements can make the recipients want to open your message or not.
It is therefore very important to choose them carefully, rather than decide five minutes before sending the email to use just the name of your company and an address such as info@yourcompany.com.

When you send a marketing email, your prospects may not know your company and so the sender name may mean nothing to them.

In B2B it is important to build a relationship of trust. So, you should send your email campaign using the name and address of a person from your company. In this way, recipients will not perceive the email so much as just another marketing email.

 

2. The subject of your email

Along with the name and address of the sender, this is the third key element which will determine whether recipients open your message or not. So, you must pay particular attention to this.
It is not an easy exercise because you can only use a limited number of words/characters (approximately 50 characters; this may vary depending on the email software) to convince recipients to open the email.

You must generate interest using few words. Your recipients must also be able to measure the potential benefits they may gain by opening the message. It is essential to use key words that are meaningful for your target.

Note: however, you must avoid certain types of words known as spam words such as free, promo, flash sale, special offer, etc., which could mean your email goes directly into the spam box, thus reducing your delivery rate.

Infographic - Anatomy of an effective email message

 

3. The content of your email

The content of your email must get straight to the point.
Professionals have little time to spend reading the messages they receive. The content must be powerful and not beat about the bush. The recipients must clearly understand what you want them to do.

Then, just as we recommend using a real sender’s name, make sure you customize your message so it is aimed directly at the recipient and thus establishes a more personal relationship.

Your content must contain key words in correlation with the subject of the email and must encourage recipients to carry out the action that you want.
By quickly browsing your message, recipients should clearly understand what it is about and what action is expected. You must therefore be convincing and concise!

 

4. The graphics of your email

It is very important to pay attention to the form of your email; again, in B2B you must adapt the style to your target and the type of message.

Si l’objectif de votre campagne emailing est de faire de la prospection commerciale, alors vous devez bannir les emails graphiques.
If the aim of your email campaign is sales prospecting, then you should avoid using graphics.
In this case, it is preferable to write a one-to-one email to make the recipient feel that you are addressing the message just at him/her.

This kind of email is less intrusive and has the best results in terms of click rates.

If you want to promote a product or send a newsletter, you can use an email with more graphics that will catch the eye and make people want to click.

Be sure you follow the two-thirds text and one-third picture rule. In this way, if the pictures in your email are blocked by the recipients’ email software, readers can still understand your message.

Equally important, make sure you fill in the “ALT” tags linked to your pictures. If they are blocked, the ALT tags will be displayed and therefore give the recipients information about what they cannot actually see.

As you will realize, you should not use an “all-picture” format, which takes a long time to upload and cannot necessarily be read by all email software.

Finally, your email must be responsive!
You must bear in mind that 55% of emails are opened using a mobile (source: Adestra). This is an additional reason for designing your email campaign in a simple and concise manner!

 

5. Call-to-Action buttons

These are the finishing touch to your email. They must be visible and hard-hitting to make recipients want to click.
If your email is designed as a one-to-one message, then the call-to-action may be a text link to an article in a blog or a landing page.
If your email is more graphic, the call-to-action will be displayed using a button.

The phrases above or before the button must incite recipients to want to go further while reassuring them, so as ensure they click.
Make sure you use just one call-to-action per message, so as not to confuse your target.

 

6. Test the display of your email

Once you have gone through all these steps, you are ready to send your campaign. But have you thought about testing it? It would be a shame to spend so much energy on a campaign that may not be displayed exactly as you had hoped.
Indeed, there are differences between the various email software packages. So, it is essential to test how the email is displayed using different email software in order to ensure that all your recipients will see it correctly.

Finally, if you cannot choose between 2 versions of the same email, do not hesitate to use A/B testing on a sample of your target audience to help you select the version that will have the most impact.

You are now ready to create and launch your email campaign.
Just one last thing: make sure you target the right contacts and regularly clean up your database. A well-designed email campaign sent using an out-of-date database will have no chance of success!

 

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About the Author

TraceParts
TraceParts

TraceParts is one of the world’s leading CAD-content platforms for Engineering, Industrial Equipment and Machine Design. TraceParts brings highly targeted Lead Generation marketing services to hundreds of customers of all sizes and from all industries, via powerful cloud-based API and SaaS applications such as 3D part libraries, product catalogs and configurators.

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