4 Ways Manufacturers Can Maximize Returns from Email Marketing

In 2019, we interviewed 150 manufacturers on their sales & marketing plans for the year, and we were able to confirm what a lot of people oftentimes suspect.

Manufacturers aren’t using email marketing to its full potential.

Email has been part of nearly every business model for over a decade, if not two– but just because industrial companies use it doesn’t mean they’re reaping all of its benefits.

There are four key steps to maximize returns from email marketing:

1. Send emails almost every week, at minimum.
2. Send video and blog content to engage your audience on your website.
3. Segment your mailing lists– don’t send the same email to everyone.
4. Set up at least a few automated lead nurturing campaigns.

1. SEND MORE THAN 2 EMAILS PER MONTH.

Almost 80% of manufacturers have adopted email marketing…but 66% of them send two emails per month or less. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of such an effective tool!?

Imagine if your brand became a regular part of someone’s work week.

Email is a great tool to stay in contact with many people at scale. It’s is a low friction tactic to nurture new leads and sell more to existing customers.

At one or two per month, most manufacturers are not utilizing this tactic nearly enough.

2. SEND MORE ENGAGING CONTENT LIKE VIDEOS AND INDUSTRY ARTICLES.

Don’t write a short novel in your every marketing email. Most of your viewers won’t read much of it– and even if they do, how will you be able to tell? If you want to maximize returns from email marketing, you need a better way to attract and measure your audience’s interest levels.

Your marketing emails should be short and sweet, with links for interested viewers to visit your website and read further.

Of the manufacturers who do send emails, over 18% have an average click-through rate of 2% or less. An email click-through rate or CTR is a measure of email recipients who click on any link in your email. This is an important metric that measures how engaging your email content is.

Less is more. Add more pictures and links; include less text.

These links could be clicks to a blog article, video, download offer, webpage, or another piece of content. To increase your click-through rate, try using engaging content like videos, offers, or blogs, or even news articles.

3. SEGMENT YOUR EMAILING LISTS AND SEND DIFFERENT MESSAGES TO DIFFERENT LEADS.

32% of manufacturers will send out one single email en masse to all of their subscribers. Don’t do that!

If you sell the same product to multiple industries, existing aerospace customers and prospects in different fields shouldn’t get the same message.

In order to maximize returns from email marketing, segment your email marketing lists and send different messages to different segments. Email segmentation is important to ensure that you are sending the right message to the right people at the right time.

Some more complex examples of segmentation include emails that are broken down by product, vertical, stage of buyers’ journey, persona, and beyond.

A good example is sending targeted emails to prospective customers who are product managers in aerospace, versus a generic mass marketing email to a mixture of prospective and existing customers in aerospace and medical.

It’s all about specialization.

4. SET UP DRIP CAMPAIGNS AND LEAD NURTURING SEQUENCES TO STAY TOP OF MIND.

31% of manufacturers don’t have any lead nurturing campaigns set up. That’s almost one in three!

It’s easy for leads to fall through the cracks while you’re distracted– and you may fall through their cracks if you’re not staying in front of them.

Effective lead nurturing campaigns are critical to turning leads into customers. The opportunity to scale your sales team by automating lead nurturing allows your sales team to focus more on closing deals, rather than on pursuing leads that aren’t sales qualified.

Leads that are not sales-qualified due to it not being the right time are continually nurtured until they are ready to buy, versus getting lost in the weeds.

Anyone sending regular, segmented emails can tell you: it’s completely worth it.

If you want your company to maximize returns from email marketing, you need to make the effort to make your emails more specialized and more frequent. Setting up email automation may seem like a big task initially, but once it’s completed it will quickly pay dividends.

With the budget season for 2020 around the corner, is email marketing one of the non-negotiables on your list?

 

 

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