Email can provide the ideal gateway to social media engagement says Luke Griffiths, VP professional services at E-Dialog International. Here are his top tips
With the emergence of the social media age the ongoing prominence of marketing emails has been called into question. However, our recent e-Dialog Global E-mail Attitudes Survey research revealed that far from being usurped by social networking in the online marketing landscape, email now provides the catalyst for kick-starting the journey. The research showed that consumers across 13 countries are prompted by marketing emails into brand advocacy among their peers via social networks, indicating the wider potential for email to help trigger viral conversation between businesses in the social media age.
While this presents an array of new opportunities for online B2B marketers, a carefully considered strategy is required if you are to capitalise on its potential, drive brand advocacy, and avoid communication breakdown.
Become a valuable information source
While the fundamental needs of business professionals are relatively simple when it comes to the information they expect to gain from receiving your marketing email, the challenge is to ensure that you overcome the initial hurdle of persuading them to even open the mail, without consigning it to the junk folder.
However receptive the target audience, and relevant the kind of business intelligence you want to provide, there is no guarantee that recipients will automatically open B2B e-mails. In order to increase your chances of this you will need to build your reputation as a trusted source of information, both for customers and for business prospects. Achieving this status requires the marketer to go the extra mile – not simply providing the basic promotional messages but creating a level of uniqueness in your content that stimulates interest in the recipient and motivates them to open your email and even look out for it in future.
Position yourself as a B2B e-newsletter publisher
Do not limit your email to simply promoting your products or company. Instead establish yourself as an informed industry commentator, at the forefront of topics that are of central interest and importance to your intended audience. Treat your recipients as insiders, offering them exclusive information on market trends, new processes or related products (not necessarily yours) and issues affecting the industry. Prepare to be opinionated and engaging in your content and messaging to encourage a response from your reader – debate is an essential part of a conversation on social media, so don’t be afraid to provide a platform for this engagement either through links to your online profiles or a dedicated section of the corporate site. This will help to instil positive acceptance in your target audience ahead of your next email being received and will prompt viral discussion – both in relation to your product and wider industry debate.
Combine old and new content
In preparing this content, do not assume that the audience has the same knowledge you do. It is acceptable to recycle or reprint valid information from the past and provide extensive links to other sources when it comes to referencing product details, historical data, industry information and knowledge.
Around three quarters of all email opens occur within the first 24 hours so it is essential that information is always up to date and relevant. However, as some recipients will open your email days or even weeks later you will also have to ensure your web-based images, links, response portal and landing pages remain accessible.
All of this lends itself to ongoing interactive discourse across your business platform. Recipients will acknowledge the opportunity to learn more by opening your next newsletter and this makes them more motivated to share information and debate with other industry colleagues.
Know how your email looks in a preview pane
One important practical consideration with regards to the design of your campaign is the email’s appearance in the preview pane. B2B marketing subscribers use preview panes to survey and triage their inboxes so this view can make or break your whole campaign. Key information that you hope will work to trigger viral conversations should be positioned in the top left of every email – if all the recipient can see here is a big, colourful advert they will more than likely delete the email without opening it.
Reaching key decision makers
The effectiveness of B2B social networking depends in a large part on the status of individuals taking part in the viral conversation. C-level executives in any organisation are charged with making the high-level decisions that influence big money spending, so reaching these individuals is vital and requires a different approach.
One method is to make C-level executives an integral part of the news/information that triggers viral conversation. For example, invite them to participate in a survey that will provide a valuable report for the rest of the industry. The invitation should come from a C-level executive at your own company, creating a conversation between senior executives as opposed to a researcher asking questions. The results of this research will provide valuable content for your email campaign and the dialogue with high level industry players will help to build key relationships.
B2B marketing campaigns have as much opportunity to provoke viral debate as consumer campaigns, however targeting and industry knowledge are essential to encourage executives to trust your content and to take the steps into brand advocacy.
