Ancient secrets for getting B2B email opened and read

Is there a polite way to say that I love being proven right? Is it a “neener, neener” moment?

Yesterday, MarketingSherpa posted the results of research presented at their Email Summit by Bob Johnson, VP and Principal Analyst at IDG Connect. This research addressed “What Motivates Buyers to Receive and Engage with Vendor Email?” (Access to this MarketingSherpa article will close on 2/20/10.)

What Johnson reported, which I was so pleased to read, is that the elements that make buyers pay attention to opt-in emails are the same ones that have made buyers pay attention to direct marketing messages for decades — possibly centuries.

They are . . .

• LIST — Influences results by 200%
  How targeted is the list of people who are receiving the message?
• OFFER — Influences results by 100%
  What information is being offered, what action, what opportunity?
• CREATIVE — Influences results by 50%
  How clearly does the email communicate the message and the call to action and resonate with the individual reader?

(Other direct marketers may put different percentages on these items, but the relationship between them will remain the same.)

So what did the IDG Connect research reveal?

• LIST – Obviously, a B2B marketer can’t find any better list than one made up of prospects that have opted-in. Every recipient has raised a hand and asked for information related to the product or service being offered. So that element is as good as it can be.
• OFFER – The offer is as important as it ever was. MarketingSherpa reports that “Underwhelming offers are the biggest weakness of most emails, according to buyers.” This insight tells B2B marketers exactly what area of their emails they can enhance if they hope to improve their open and response rates.
• CREATIVE - The survey shows two creative elements that can make an impact on email response. One is recognizing the sender. “Buyers cited ‘known sender’ as the most important factor in determining whether or not they open an email.” The second is personalization — not just with the name but also with title and area of interest. Directing the message to individuals is why direct marketing is also called target marketing.

Another “revelation” is that “Buyers want to do a good job for the organization they work for, but they’re also looking out for number one.” That point is no surprise to those of us in B2B direct marketing who know that ALL decisions are emotional. The more the message is focused on what the product or service can do for that individual in his or her workday (while benefiting the company), the better it will perform.

So I send out a thank you to my readers for letting me have this moment of glory and proving once again that marketing channels may change — but people do not.

One note on social media
This IDG Connect study researched the opinions of both buyers and marketers, finding interesting differences between their views. In fact, marketers gave far more importance to social media as a “favored method for receiving product/services information.” Buyers were shown to favor that channel by only 12%.

Advice to most B2B marketers: “Don’t sweat the big stuff”

Among the several dozen opt-in emails I got today was a warning from iMedia Connection. The email was an intro to a blog post by Adam Kleinberg, CEO of Traction, titled “5 Marketing Megatrends You Can’t Ignore.”

It’s true — I did not ignore his post. The implied warning is that marketers, including B2B marketers, must adapt to these overpowering market trends.

Actually, the post is an insightful, worldview of marketing — and it’s not wrong. Kleinberg talks convincingly of the opportunities available to those who are able to leverage these trends into their brand and their marketing practices. Here is his list:

• Megatrend 1: Mass collaboration is powering the new economy
• Megatrend 2: Constant connectivity in an on-demand world
• Megatrend 3: Globalization, making the world a smaller place
• Megatrend 4: Pervasive distrust in big corporations
• Megatrend 5: A global sense of urgency to fix the problems of a modern world

“These,” he says, are a “tsunami of change transforming society.”

However, if these trends are big enough to affect all marketers, then why did a fairly recent Sysomos study show that 75% of all Twitter traffic is generated by 5% of users? Why did a Forrester Research growth forecast for 2009 predict that online sales would make up only 7% of overall retail revenue, compared with 6% in 2008?

Marketers who are not using Twitter may be missing some of the population but not a majority of their market by a long shot. The share of Internet retailing is growing, but it’s still a small percentage of retail sales. There may be “pervasive distrust in big corporations,” but big corporations make up less than 2% of the companies in the United States. As of 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau found that out of the 25 million firms in the United States, only 5,104,331 have paid employees. Of those, 4,980,165 (98%) have fewer than 100 employees and 4,453,810 (87%) have fewer than 20.

So the trends are big. People and business buyers may be changing how they communicate, how they research information, how they collaborate, what public goals and causes they support, and more. But people haven’t changed.

B2B marketers and companies big enough to have the time, the personnel and the budget to take advantage of these trends should go for it. The remaining 98% of B2B marketers should know that these trends haven’t changed the market enough that they need to sweat it.

Knowledge of human behavior is a marketer’s best asset.

Today a colleague forwarded an excellent article by Kaila Colbin — “Understanding Human Behavior,” published online on MediaPost. It discusses human behavior and states that, when dealing with people, the important question to ask is, “What will people do if given a certain stimulus?”

 

The example that comes to mind is that, if you raise taxes on a product or service, the first thing people will do is stop buying it. But then, moving my mind into the realm of marketing (where it dwells most of the time), I know that this question is also at the heart of successful direct marketing. For instance:

 

• What will prospects do if you offer them a free white paper discussing best practices relating to a business process that affects their job?

 

Answer: They will request the white paper and you’ll gain a qualified lead — whether they want to find out how to improve their processes OR if they think they are doing everything right and just want to confirm it. This approach is likely to ensure marketing success when generating leads.

 

Why is this? It offers an immediate reward and carries no effort or obligation.

 

• What will prospects do if you invite them to a Webinar to learn more about your product and how it can solve their operational problems?

 

Answer: They will sign up to attend only if they are already actively evaluating solutions to solve this problem; otherwise, they will ignore your message. Your response will be small.

 

Why is this? The offer does not deliver an immediate reward and requires a commitment of time (which, these days, is a precious thing).

 

Both of the above offers have value — just at different stages of the buying cycle. The key to making the right offer at the right time requires knowledge of human nature and the reward vs. the effort.