Email Marketing: B2B vs. B2C

Email is an effective tool for both business to business and business to consumer marketing and advertising. Once a strong email list is compiled, reaching your audience with featured products, sales, promotions, and content is just a click of a button away. And while the strategies may differ, it applies to both B2B and B2C marketing.

Business to Business Email
B2B marketing is hard – the market is competitive, the target audience is busy, and many of the tricks applied to B2C marketing just don’t apply; but email remains one of the best ways to get your message out there. In 2015, revenue generated from email marketing for B2B sales was up by 60% over 2014. Because of statistics like these, over 11 times more businesses are doing email marketing when compared to 2010.

Business to business email marketing has its own unique focus when compared to B2C:

  • Focus on Education – Because the B2B environment is so crowded, your email marketing needs to contain more than a sales pitch. Offering educational and informative resources is a great way to stand out from the B2B crowd.
  • Highlight Services – Whatever you’re selling, focus on how your service makes you different. Again, with B2B the challenge is standing out. So save the product sales pitch and focus on the support services you offer.
  • Offer Trials – B2B sales are generally for larger purchases, on-going services, or large software suites; because of this, it is important to offer free trials or samples that prove the quality of your product or service.
  • Benefits, Benefits, Benefits – Businesses are looking to help their bottom line. So the bottom line of your email marketing efforts should be to show how you can help business owners save time and money while increasing sales.

Business to Consumer Email
When it comes to reaching consumers, marketers have a wide range of options: direct mail, social media, PPC advertising, SEO, and email. Each channel has its own strengths and weaknesses, and email marketing has some of the best strengths available. Email is 40 times more effective at generating new leads and customers than both Facebook and Twitter, and 72% of consumers want to get promotional content through email – compared to a meager 17% on social media.

When planning a B2C email marketing campaign, consider following these four tips:

  • Focus on a Story – Good marketing captures the audience’s attention, and this applies to email marketing as well. Your product or service tells a story – capitalize on that story by creating a distinctive feel and story to your emails. Sales pitches are boring, stories are exciting.
  • Highlight Bestsellers – Popular items are popular for a reason. Feature those bestselling products and services in your email campaign because you know they work and are pleasing to consumers.
  • Offer Discounts – So much of B2C marketing is focused on creating loyal customers; offering promotions and discounts through email is a great way to get that initial purchase and start building a devoted customer base.
  • Value, Value, Value – Consumers want to save money – so focus on highlighting the value offered in your products and services. This value could be a price-point, but could also be something like organic, free-trade, quality, or anything else the consumer values.

Email Marketing that Works
Whether you’re looking to market to businesses or consumers, email is a modern and effective tool for reaching your target audience. Fusion Group USA offers email marketing campaigns that produce results for your business – with trackable data to prove a return on your investment. Contact us today to see how we can tap into email marketing to drive business growth, build customer loyalty, and reach a wider audience.

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