The power of personalised email journeys in B2B marketing
Email marketing remains a potent tool in B2B marketing, offering a direct and personalised way to nurture leads, build relationships, and drive conversions. In this blog, we will delve into the world of email marketing and explore how to set up effective email nurture journeys that will engage your B2B audience.
Why create email nurture journeys?
Email nurture journeys are designed to guide leads through a series of personalised and automated email interactions. This approach is highly effective for several reasons:
Build relationships
Email allows you to establish and nurture relationships with your audience over time. By providing valuable content and addressing their pain points, you can become a trusted resource in their eyes. Even if they don’t regularly open your emails, your name becomes familiar in their inbox (provided you don’t disrespect the inbox)!
Personalisation
Modern CRMs enable you to deliver tailored content based on a prospect’s behaviour, interests, and stage in the buying journey. Personalised emails have higher open and click-through rates.
You need to have a really clean database with good tagging and segmentation for this to happen! This is often an annual hygiene job to do - check the state of your CRM’s prospects database.
Personalisation in email marketing
Personalisation is the key to effective email marketing. It involves tailoring your email content and messaging to each recipient's specific needs and preferences. Here are some ways to incorporate personalisation:
Dynamic content: Use dynamic content blocks in your emails to display personalised recommendations or information based on the recipient's behaviour or demographics.
Segmentation: Segment your email list to send targeted messages to different groups. For example, you can send industry-specific content to leads in a particular sector.
Behavioural triggers: Set up triggers based on user behaviour. For instance, send a follow-up email when a lead visits a specific product page on your website but doesn't make a purchase.
Personalised recommendations: If you offer a range of products or services, provide personalised recommendations based on the recipient's previous interactions or preferences.
Lead nurturing
Not all leads are ready to make a purchasing decision immediately. Email nurture journeys allow you to stay top-of-mind with leads as they progress through the buying cycle, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Automation
Automated email sequences save time and ensure consistency in your communications. Once set up, they run automatically, delivering the right message at the right time.
Setting up effective email nurture journeys
Creating successful email nurture journeys requires careful planning and execution. Here's a step-by-step guide to setting up your email nurture flows:
Step 1: Define your goals
Start by clearly defining the objectives of your email nurture journey. Are you aiming to educate leads, drive them to a specific landing page, or encourage them to request a demo? Knowing your goals will guide your content and messaging.
Step 2: Segment your audience
Segmentation is critical in email marketing. Divide your leads into distinct segments based on criteria such as industry, job title, behaviour, or engagement level. This allows you to send highly relevant content to each group.
Step 3: Create compelling content
Craft engaging and valuable content for each stage of the nurture journey. Your emails should provide information, solve problems, and showcase the benefits of your product or service.
Step 4: Map your journey
Visualise the email journey, including the number of emails, their timing, and the triggers that move leads from one stage to the next. Typically, a nurture journey includes the following stages:
Welcome email: The initial email to introduce your brand and set expectations.
Educational emails: Provide informative content related to the lead's interests or pain points.
Product or service highlight: Showcase the value of your offering.
Social proof: Share customer testimonials or case studies.
Call to action: Encourage a specific action, such as scheduling a demo or requesting more information.
Step 5: Implement automation
Use an email marketing automation platform to set up your nurture journey. Most CRMs have this feature built-in these days. This allows you to create automated sequences, trigger emails based on user behaviour, and track performance.
Tools we recommend:
Hubspot - expensive, but has all the bells and whistles if you have both the Sales and Marketing CRM options. HubSpot is a developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.
ActiveCampaign - ActiveCampaign provides marketing automation, email marketing, and CRM tools for small to large businesses.
Pipedrive - Pipedrive is a CRM software provider focused on streamlining sales
Step 6: Test and optimise
Regularly review the performance of your email nurture journeys. Test different subject lines, content, and timing to optimise open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.