B2B email marketing Archives

Email Send-out Schedules That Will Surely Increase your Conversions

June 20, 2018/in Email Marketing /by Dara Lin

When it comes right down to email marketing, it is essential for B2B marketers to commit to a specific schedule. Having one makes it easier to engage prospects and, more importantly, secure a better position for one’s products and services.

To be more specific, an effective email marketing schedule provides a lot of benefits for companies across different industries. Business decision makers would usually begin or end their day by opening their inboxes, so companies that want to offer their solutions will have to make sure their messages come across to their target audiences and avoid being buried under a pile of promotions and other marketing messages.

Scheduling email marketing sendouts is an important consideration that B2B marketers will have to take seriously. To compete better for the hearts and minds of their prospects, they will need to pinpoint the exact times their prospects should be receiving newsletters and other content.

Whether you are using marketing automation platforms or doing it manually, scheduling your messages lets you maximize your resources, increase your engagements, and accelerate your conversions.

Still, one question is begging to be answered: When would be the right time for prospects to receive emails?

For that, we scoured the web for possible answers, and here’s what we found so far.

Tuesdays

According to research conducted by Customer.IO, the second day of the week seems to be a more viable time to send marketing communications to prospects, pointing out that “Tuesday’s emails have an overall open rate of about 18%, the highest open rate compared to the other weekdays.” This is on account of the fact that decision-makers revert back to “work mode” after undergoing Monday’s post-weekend slump. In the afternoon, people are about to leave work and set their agendas the day after. This gives you an opportunity to slip in your emails just when they are opening their inboxes.

Midweek

Generally, a lot of businesses concur that email blasts are generally done in the middle of the week when people are at the peak of their focus when it comes to working. This article on Wordstream points out that the ideal time to send is between 1 to 3 PM, although morning sendouts from 9 to 11 AM is also preferable. For MailChimp, on the other hand, sending out at 2 PM provides the most leverage in terms of getting better engagements.

Thursday morning

The same article suggests an even better time for an email blast. Thursday mornings provide basically the best conditions for decision-makers to open marketing messages, to Wordstream at least. Despite being too early a time, an 8 AM email blast (consistent with the recipient’s time zone, of course) does secure higher open rates compared to other schedules during the day.

Sundays

Email blasts on the weekend?! Well, it is possible if you think about it very carefully. In the Email Marketing Quarterly Benchmark Study for the Fourth Quarter of 2013 cited in an article by Get Response, Experian points out that Sundays are the best day to send emails. Furthermore, the best time to receive them typically ranges from 8 PM to 11:59 PM. It’s an unusual time for a send-out since most email bounces happen during the weekends, but if done right, organizations can see an improvement in their click-through rates and conversions.

Anywhere after work hours

Campaign Monitor has different findings for optimum send outs. According to its own analysis, 24% of emails are opened from 6 PM to 11 PM just when decision-makers are going home. It makes sense since the rush hour traffic in the earlier part of this frame provides the most appropriate time to open emails using mobile. Campaign Monitor goes on to say that at least 47% of all emails are opened outside of work hours, demonstrating the need for companies to optimize their newsletters and other email content for mobile users.

Our verdict

What we learned from these observations is the fact that most B2B decision-makers prefer to open emails outside of their offices. The general principle is to conduct email blasts before or after the workday begins. This is not to say your business should follow this as a general rule of thumb. You can also create efficient campaigns by testing out different times of the day and acquire an effective time frame that fits your marketing objectives.

Quick Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy

April 9, 2018/in Lead Generation /by Dara Lin

A strenuous workout and scientific diet may not the best ways to achieve your target body shape but doing less of these will, strength coach Marc Megna believes. So as the title of this blog starts with “quick ways” then we won’t linger on thorough research and jotting down a trailing list of steps to “improve your email marketing strategy”, instead we’ll look into tactics that would maximize time and effort, all at very least.

Get to know your audience

Just as every workout session starts with a warm-up exercise so is email marketing with knowing well your prospects. Do this via Customer Profiling, considering both demographics:

Complete, valid and accurate information

name of contact
business name
address
phone numbers
email address
social media accounts

As well all other business specifications like industry category, location, target market, target location and size

Psychographic data of each target:

their purchase behaviour and their interests.

Make it short

Your prospect won’t appreciate lengthy emails but nevertheless, a substantial content containing a WIIFM (what’s in it for me) benefit for the prospect and specific product/service that would answer the needs of the business pose a higher chance to be opened and less likely to go into thrash. Like if you’ve been doing 5 to 10 side lunges and one-legged squats for 2-3 months now and still not seeing apparent results, then do just 2-3 sets and do other much effective routines.

Beat the blunder

“Hi John, how are you?”, “Good day to you, Ms. Lee, Hope this is a good time…” – opening blunders in emails such as these are likely to land in the trash or spam folders as they just don’t appear boring but rather weak. Remember that you are writing to a decision-maker, one who attends to several meetings (in and out of office) every day and who attends to multiple matters, dealing with various clients. He could hardly spend the time to read through fluffy emails so make your email short, straight to the point but never miss to keep it personalized to avoid becoming robotic.

CTA

Call-to-action buttons, links, and boxes are designed to draw immediate response from your prospects. These are like strength-training tools that you must include in your emails in order to build a strong connection with your targets; necessary tools that would guide them through the buying journey. Click here, Download, Register, Schedule An Appointment, Order Now, Watch This Video and Sign up are just a few of the classic examples of call-to-actions that greatly help in converting visitors and readers into sales.

Little changes can add up to big and major results. Start tweaking your email marketing strategy now to achieve a well-built sales and marketing campaign.

How to Make Sure Your Cold Emails Make it to the Inbox [VIDEO]

February 16, 2018/in B2B Marketing & Strategy /by Dara Lin

1 in 5 commercial emails sent never reaches the inbox.

6% end up in the spam folder
14% are blocked by ISPs entirely.

For cold emails, inbox placement becomes even more challenging.

That’s because…

You don’t have a relationship with your recipient yet.
You’re sending unsolicited messages.

But this doesn’t mean cold emails are spam.

That’s why they belong to the inbox, not the junk folder.

Follow these steps to make sure things stay that way…

Step 1: Scrub your list thoroughly

Your cold outreach’s success depends on the quality of your list.

Use list cleaning tools and services to remove bad addresses
Run a double opt-in campaign, especially when using a third-party list

Step 2: Check your copy for spam triggers

Your email’s content and design can set off spam alerts in dozens of ways.

Limit your use of known spam words
Maintain a 60-40 text-to-image ratio
Link exclusively to reputable domains

Step 3: Segment and personalize your campaign

In the eyes of ISPs, there’s a fine line between non-personalized bulk emails and spam.

Add some prospect-specific snippets to your email templates
Segment your list and customize the message for each group

Step 4: Let ISPs know you’re someone they can trust

Sender authentication tools and services can help you improve deliverability.

Setup SPF, DKIM, and DMARC anti-spoofing
Sign up for sender and email certification audits

Step 5: Watch how you use your sending IP

Once your sending IP and domain get blacklisted, your emails no longer reach recipients.

Send emails in small batches each day and gradually increase the volume
Use a dedicated IP for your sending server
Keep hard bounces below 5% and spam reports below 0.1%

Remember, cold emails are not spam unless you make them that way.

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