Making your business emails stand out requires a bit of innovation. Once you've got the data you require from your trusted email list broker it is time to start thinking about design. In other words, what makes email marketing interesting and memorable.
There is more to business-to-business marketing than simply spamming contacts with hundreds of messages. The content has to be relevant, the message has to be engaging, it has to be easy to access and it must work on a plethora of platforms - particularly mobile, a channel that is growing in popularity for business-to-business marketing specialists.
One of the first things you should bear in mind, however, is that focusing on all the latest email marketing bells and whistles could mean you forget who you are targeting and why. At the end of the day, you want your content to grab hold of people and using the same tools and techniques as everyone else can detract from your core message. Getting the design wrong could mean your business list mailouts fall on deaf ears.
So what are the most important issues to address?
First you need a rock solid list of contacts. A business list that has the names of all the key decision makers at a firm, the type of company it is, how many people it employs and how long it has been trading. Once you've got a list like this you can start targeting people with relevant marketing.
Then you need to craft your message to make sure that your recipients find it engaging. This is the first hurdle to overcome. Once you have an offering that makes people's ears prick up you can move onto the issue of design. And this is where B2B marketing starts to get interesting.
What are the key design considerations?
There are a huge number of marketing design considerations to take into account, but having a short checklist can be really helpful. Traditionally marketers used to take the 'logo is our brand' approach. While this is still a key concern and getting your company logo on email marketing messages is vital, other design issues have started to come to the fore - particularly as mobile internet access has taken off.
For starters, branding is now all encompassing. Each transmission must have your company's look, feel, style and voice. Branding is not just visual, it also ensures consistency across all platforms and means you won't end up targeting people who may not be interested.
This needs to be balanced against multi-platform design, however. It is all well and good using your business mailing list to email messages that mirror your company's homepage, but if people have trouble displaying them, they won't read them. So another key design consideration is accessibility. This is particularly important when you consider how many business people access their emails through a smartphone - like a BlackBerry of iPhone. If the message is too big to be read it could end up in the deleted folder.
An interesting way to look at email design is that while you can create messages that use the latest widgets and fancy HTML coding, sometimes a simple text-based message can work wonders. Using the limitations of the medium to your advantage can be hugely beneficial - particularly if you know that the business data you are basing your campaigns on is solid. In other words, keep it simple.
