Email marketing is an excellent way to drive business to business sales. Here are a few tips that will help you to get better results from your email marketing efforts in 2011.

Test your email first before sending it out to your entire list!

Only 33% of recipients have images turned on by default and more than 80% of business users have the preview pane turned on by default. More than 75% of people use the horizontal rather than the vertical preview pane.

The preview pane is your opportunity to persuade the recipient to open your email fully and view the images. Make sure that your email is formatted so that the preview pane shows useful information that will entice the recipient to open the email. Too often the preview pane shows just housekeeping information and links to social media websites without any indication of what the email benefits are.

Segment your list and send more relevent offers

You may have one list for people who requested information and another list for those who have ordered a product/service from you. You can also segment lists in other ways such as by country, by decision maker, or even down to the level of which product or service was purchased.

By sending more relevent offers and by testing different email copy you will improve conversion rates and get a better return on investment from your business to business email marketing campaign.

Lead generation considerations

It is always better to collect email addresses yourself rather than buy in email lists. This will help you to avoid any accusations of spamming, the cost will be lower, and the return in investment will be much higher.

There are many ways to build your own email marketing list. One way is to offer a free report or white paper. Another is through a quote request form. You can also automate email collection from incoming emails to your business, or extract email addresses from orders placed online.

Make sure that you comply with local laws, for example in the UK you may need to be registered with the Data Protection Act especially if you are storing consumer data or selling data on to other companies. Thankfully the cost is low and it is an easy process to apply for your registration number.

Need help with business to business email marketing?

If you would like help setting up a B2B email marketing campaign or advice on improving the efficiency of your existing email marketing call James on Nottingham 0115 9400 899 or use the contact form.