Is your email marketing list part of the core of your industrial marketing plan? It should be.
Email marketing is one of the most established B2B marketing tactics out there. With big return on investment, and a relatively low level of maintenance, it should be part of the foundation of your industrial marketing plan.
You’re probably already familiar with the concept of email marketing, but I wanted to touch on the most basic component of email marketing; your list.
What exactly is it?
Some people call it a marketing list, others call it an email list, but for our purposes, we will refer to it simply as a list. Your list is extremely important.
Your list is literally a list of email addresses for potential customers. Often, depending on where the contact came from, you’ll have associated information, such as their name, company, phone number, etc. Your list is housed in your marketing automation program and constantly added to.
Email marketing can be implemented without marketing automation software, but we don’t recommend it, for the simple fact that the benefits of being able to easily segment lists, customize your messages, and track opens, sends and other metrics far outweigh additional costs.
Where do these contacts come from?
You likely already keep a contact database. Maybe you’re ahead of the curve and you have a CRM (customer relationship management) system such as Salesforce or Eloqua. The contacts already populating these databases are easy to transfer over to your new marketing list.
On top of that, marketing automation software makes it easy to import, in real-time (the term is “push”) contacts from your CRM system, without ever having to log in or check up on the process.
If you’re looking to expand into a new market or rapidly grow a startup, another option is to purchase contacts, but we recommend doing so only through a reputable source.
Some marketing automation programs will not allow you to upload purchased lists; only addresses of members that have opted in. I’d advise not to test the limits of your email automation provider.
But avoid black hat practices like being overly-spammy, or not allowing list members to unsubscribe. In fact, it is a violation of federal law to not allow members to opt-out of being on your list.
If you have any uncertainty about email marketing best practices, be sure to check out my article on the Do’s and Don’ts of email marketing.
Email marketing is a reliable industrial marketing tactic that all B2B companies should be taking advantage of. When it comes to distributing content, there are few methods that can touch the big ROI that email marketing offers.
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