Getting Into the B2B Email Inbox

While Marketing Sherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark reports the good news that 83 percent of emails are successfully delivered to their intended recipients, there is still room for a 14 percent improvement in email marketing campaigns.

If your deliverability rate is below this national average, then it is time to review the quality of your contact lists, the content of your messages and the frequency of your mailings. The most successful email campaigns meet ISP requirements, pass spam filter inspections and motivate the recipient to take action.

Clean Up Distribution Lists

Whenever an email is bypassed, deleted, blocked or marked as spam, it hurts your ROI. Regularly evaluate your email lists to ensure recent activity and current accounts. Most email databases can be divided into smaller groupings that receive targeted content. You must also regularly review spam complaints and promptly respond to unsubscribe requests.

Relevancy

In marketing, relevance is King, so focus on delivering targeted and succinct messages both in the content of the message as well as in the distribution list. Personalized emails sent to a select audience yield higher results than generic messages to a mass audience. If your messages lack any relevancy your unsubscribes will quickly increase.

Evaluate Timing

B2B buyers are more responsive at different times of the day and week. This is a distinct difference between business and consumer patterns. Analyze your audience’s browsing behavior to determine when they are most active, and study their purchasing habits so you know when they typically make buying decisions. Then utilize STO (Send Time Optimization) because consistency is more important than frequency.

You must also address deliverability issues with an increasingly mobile workforce so ensure that your creative is optimized for all formats. Additionally diversify the channels by following up your email with a LinkedIn reminder and sending out a Tweet at the end of the day.

Analyze All Campaign Channels

If your email campaign is supported by a website, mobile ads or direct mail pieces, then it does not exist in a vacuum. Analyze all the data from your various channels to glean a more accurate perspective on your customers’ response rates. This information will identify your weakest and highest quality leads.

Ultimately, your behavior and reputation determines your inbox deliverability rate. A quality email supplier and knowledgeable list broker can help support the distribution process.