While we see continuous change in the B2B marketing space, email marketing continues to be one of the most impactful and widely used tactics in B2B marketing toolkit. 77% of audiences note email as the best way to receive messages from brands. Even with new platforms, tools, and ways to consume information, email still holds strong at the top of the list. But with heavy competition for attention inboxes, it’s important to continue upping your email game or risk plateauing or declining performance. Let’s dig deeper into what trends marketers are focusing on to get more out of email marketing moving forward.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing has continued to expand and has become the norm in many organizations. Whether it is the use of AI for prompts, automation, personalization, or more, it has woven itself into many components of B2B marketing. It has become the standard. Using AI in your email marketing campaigns can have the potential to improve your return on investment for a variety of reasons, including:

• Performance Analysis: Go beyond open and click rates. Get specific on performance for certain email segments or locations to further refine your content, messaging, and more.
• Content Personalization: Tailoring content to pain points, demographics, firmographics, and more has become more important than ever. AI can help narrow key focus areas for messaging and personalization. Get your messaging right to create connections, keep audiences interested, and your brand top of mind. In practice, this can look like personalizing subject lines based on what a contact is most likely to open, recommending products or services based on previous behaviors, or optimizing send time for contacts based on previous activity.
• Workflow Automations: Whether it is adding contacts to email cadences or segmenting lists for targeted emails, AI can automate these processes and even personalizing steps along the way saving you the time to focus on other activities.

More Sophisticated Email Personalization Tactics

As personalization popularity grows, so does the eye for interactive content. Audiences are looking for ways to be involved and play a part in interacting with their buyer journey. Interactive content is becoming so critical that 97% of marketers have used at least one interactive content element in the last year. You’ve probably used an interactive component whether you know it or not. Some examples of interactive content include:

• Embedded videos
• Interactive forms
• Surveys or assessments
• Countdowns (think counting down to a new product launch or company announcement)
• Interactive buttons

The great thing about these interactive elements is they are often visual and stand out amongst the email copy. If you can capture the audience’s eye and encourage them to take the quiz, watch the video, or click the button, you are improving your engagement and building important connections. Plus, as more content floods audience inboxes, media feeds, and apps, having something that stands out can be memorable and make your brand more recognizable. Imagine including an interactive form on every email? What about a specifically styled button? These components grab attention and give the audience something to look forward to and associate with your brand.

Integrating Email with Other Marketing Channels

Email is no longer in a world of its own. It must be integrated with other channels to be effective. While many organizations have an integrated marketing plan that weaves email into other activities, those that don’t are missing out. Integrating email with activities like content or advertising doesn’t have to be complex. Start simple and as you expand your strategy or channels, you can expand the complexity. With email acting as a connector or a connection to other activities, you can:

• A clicked email link can trigger a one-to-one follow up a few days later
• An opened email prompts the contact to be added to a specific segment for digital advertising
• An asset download on the website serves a follow up email and addition to a new lead cadence

These are just a few possibilities of how email can help keep your brand and expertise top of mind for new leads and current prospects.

Navigating Stricter Send Guidelines

In early 2024, Google announced new security rules for email authentication, in particular for those that send emails simultaneously, thus many organizations who use email marketing. These updated measures included required Sender Policy Framework (SPF) or DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) for an email domain, implementing a DMARC record, and enabling one-click unsubscribe options. These enhancements keep emails more secure and clarify where communications are coming from and why. Here are other ways that might be overlooked to ensure you adhere to the strict email deliverability guidelines and keep your emails sent and delivered as needed:

• Build a template where the one-step unsubscribe is clear and easy
• Ensure unsubscribes are processed as soon as possible
• Evaluate your list regularly. Remove contacts who have been inactive for a certain time and recurring soft bounces. Also ensure all hard bounces are being removed from the marketable contacts. Discover more sales and marketing data best practices.
• Avoid buying email lists and obtain opt-in, and double opt-in for some contacts, to ensure list integrity
• Stick to a consistent send schedule. Sporadic email sends can flag suspicion for email providers

Adhering to these guidelines also help follow emerging privacy policies amid new privacy challenges.

The goal of marketing efforts is engagement and growth. Plan and execute your B2B email marketing campaigns with these new trends in mind and always be evaluating performance to understand what is working, what isn’t, and how you can make changes for the better.

If you have questions about what your email marketing strategy or how to navigate these emerging trends, reach out to Launch Marketing today! Or schedule a consultation directly with our CEO, Chris Leger.