Monica Caraway
Getting a marketing-savvy B2B prospect with an overflowing inbox to read your email is impossible. If you really want solid results, check out these must-read tips on how to get your audience to open your email, engage with the content, and take action!
First Things First...B2B Email Marketing Works
Email is alive and kicking and has an average ROI of 4,200% on targeted campaigns. But you need to do more than hit the send button and then cross your fingers. You must:
- Get your emails into your recipients’ inboxes, not their spam folder
- Make sure your audience opens the emails
- Get them to engage with the content.
The Trifecta to Boosting Your Email Marketing ROI
Here’s how to check all three boxes to get the most of your email marketing budget:
1. Increase Your Email Deliverability
Back in the day, words, characters, capitalization, etc., used in the subject line could land an email in the spam folder. Today, what matters is the reputation of the IP address and domain from which you send the email.
To boost your reputation, send marketing emails to people who want to hear from you to avoid getting marked as spam. One easy (but often overlooked) tactic is to remove group emails like info@ or sales@ from your email list. Why? Multiple people receive these emails and chances are much higher that someone in the group will mark your email as spam.
NOTE: We've now made it easier for you to isolate group emails in your B2B email lists by providing you with a list of the typical group email addresses businesses and groups use in our PDF download.
Beyond cleaning up your lists, you should also perform contact list hygiene regularly to protect your sending reputation—especially if you see the open rate drop over time. Email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail or Outlook move emails with low engagement rates to spam folders. Purge your list of graymail and unengaged contacts to get back onto the good side of ESPs.
2. Crank Up Your Open Rates
What do your recipients see when they open their inbox?
Sender names and the subject lines of a ton of emails.
To get them to click on yours, you must dial in these two elements. After all, if your audience doesn’t open your email, there’ll be no conversions!
Here are some latest metrics and insights that Jay Schwedelson, President & CEO of Worldata shared at Inbound 2021 to help you make your subject line more effective:
- Create suspense: Add “…” at the end of the subject line, which can increase open rates by as much as 31%.
- Be different: Use (Parenthesis), [Brackets], and *Asterisks* to highlight a word or phrase, which can boost open rates by 27%.
- Catch attention: đź“š Bookend the subject line with relevant emojis, which can result in a 31% higher open rate. đź‘Ť
- Promote a “list” (e.g., 5 tips…): Promote bite-sized, digestible content, which can boost open rates by 34%.
Don’t forget the from address. A "friendly from" (like below) that matches the topic of the subject line helps establish relevance and credibility, leading to a 34% increase in open rates.
Email Myths Busted! What's REALLY Working Now!
B2B Institute, LinkedIn, INBOUND Session 2021
3. Increase Your Conversion Rates
After getting your audience to open your email, you have to take it to the finish line: Get them to convert—whether it’s reading a blog post, downloading an e-book, or making a purchase. That means the meat of your email content must be valuable to your recipients.
Segment your list to send highly relevant content or offers to deliver a personalized experience (not news: marketing personalization works!) As more recipients engage with your content, you’ll also boost your domain reputation and increase your chances of getting into people’s inboxes.
You can also use automated email triggered by the recipients’ interactions with your other online touchpoints (e.g., viewing a product page) to deliver email content that matches the customer lifecycle stages.
There you have it...
Dialing in these three aspects of your email marketing strategy is key to boosting your ROI. But we all know things can change on a dime (iOS 14, anyone?) That’s why it’s important to keep your eagle eye on the metrics and make sure that you’re responding to the latest customer expectations and preferences as the B2B landscape evolves.
Don't forget to download our PDF listing the typical group emails that you should weed out of your B2B email marketing campaigns! You will have better luck hitting inboxes on each send by removing these culprits from your marketing database! 
Additional Resources
The Truth About B2B Email Deliverability — AN ABSOLUTE MUST-READ FOR B2B MARKETERS!