Email marketing contributes to commercial success at every stage of the customer journey

How do you stay top of mind with potential customers? In B2B, the focus is often on personal contact while an increasing part of the customer journey takes place online. A well-findable website and regular activity on social media are therefore essential, but how do you ensure that those visitors actually become customers? Email marketing can make the difference. In this article, we explain why email marketing builds brand awareness and customer loyalty in every phase.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing, where a (potential) customer is approached by email to promote products and services.

In B2C, offers are often central, but in B2B email marketing is often used more indirectly. By sharing information about a product or service, examples (business cases), or by providing insight into the purchasing process or service delivery, email marketing lowers the threshold to get in touch or make a (repeat) purchase. The target audience becomes increasingly familiar with a brand and its way of working, leading to more commercial success. Email marketing can therefore be applied in every phase of the customer journey.

The customer journey can be divided in many different ways; for this article, we simplify it to:

• Brand awareness
• Sales (lead nurturing)
• Aftercare and repeat sales (after sales)

Inspire potential customers during the brand awareness phase

In the brand awareness phase, your customers are exploring possible solutions and partners or suppliers. Do you have a well-functioning, organically findable website? Good chance they will end up on your website. How do you ensure that this visitor then puts you on the shortlist for a next step or places an order directly?

In this phase, we want to collect email addresses from potential customers so we can stay top of mind even after this first contact. Therefore, make sure potential customers subscribe to your newsletter on your website. Of course, there are other ways to convince people to leave their details. Think, for example, of offering a download, discount code, or personal advice in exchange for an email address.

You can then use email marketing to keep the collected email addresses informed about new articles, product information, special events, and temporary promotions. Your brand remains proactively visible to potential customers, builds brand awareness, and informs the target audience about its products, services, and expertise.

Lead nurturing with email marketing: from lead to customer with relevant content

Lead nurturing is sharing content tailored to the phase of the customer journey in which a potential customer is located. Leads receive a series of emails, each containing the information they need to move to the next phase in the purchasing process. As leads progress, the information becomes more product- and purchase-oriented.

This email marketing strategy is very suitable for products and services where the customer needs certain knowledge to make a purchase. This naturally applies to many B2B products and services where a purchase is not made lightly.

Want to finish your lead nurturing strategy with a bang? Then offer potential customers a unique proposal, for example a sample or free consultation. Purchase-ready leads will very likely be tempted by this, proof of a successful lead nurturing strategy!

And the leads who do not respond to the offer? They flow into other streams of your email marketing strategy so they continue to come into contact with your brand. Think, for example, of a regular newsletter.

Clear plan and tools

Email marketing goes beyond a one-time newsletter. It is a full-fledged marketing channel that must have a place in the marketing mix. But many organizations struggle with (an aspect of) the implementation or drafting a plan. For example, they may lack the knowledge or capacity to create a design, choose the right program, import addresses, and draft the necessary emails.

In practice, collaboration works best. Merkelijkheid provides the necessary planning and implementation so your story stands out. We focus on results together and ensure that email marketing contributes to the commercial success of your brand. Contact us and we will gladly tell you about our approach using practical examples.

Maintaining contacts with email marketing leads to repeat purchases and ambassadors

You did it, your lead has become a customer! Can email marketing still be used? Absolutely, email marketing is still valuable. Even after a sale, email marketing contributes to generating repeat purchases and creates ambassadors for your brand.

Therefore, in your email marketing strategy, not only consider leads but continue to provide relevant content for every phase of the customer journey. Make room for after sales content such as updates about maintenance or product replacement and keep inspiring existing customers.

Want to make optimal use of successful lead nurturing? Probably one of your new customers is the example that convinces your next customer!

Moving forward with email marketing

After reading this article, you have two options;

1. Start with email marketing: a 6-step email marketing strategy
2. 8 reasons to write a B2B newsletter

With the latter article, we hope to convince you, as a doubter, of course.

Are you still not convinced of the usefulness of email marketing for your brand after reading this article? Perhaps these 8 reasons to write a B2B newsletter will convince you. Are you convinced and ready to get started? In a series of articles, we will help you on your way! In the article “Start with email marketing: a 6-step email marketing strategy” we outline the first steps.