Leveraging email effectively can be a game-changer for any industry, manufacturing included. From enhancing customer relationships to driving sales and brand awareness, email marketing is a direct and personalized communication channel that resonates with B2B and B2C clients and customers alike.
Welcome to our multi-part series created for manufacturers navigating the marketing world. In this post, we’ll tackle email marketing for manufacturers, discussing various tools and strategies that contribute to real-world success. Let’s explore how manufacturers can harness email to optimize their marketing initiatives.
Why is Email Marketing Important for Manufacturers?
Email marketing holds significance to manufacturers for several reasons, such as the ability to:
- Build and Nurture Relationships: Stay connected with customers and clients, providing updates, industry insights, and personalized content that demonstrates expertise and builds trust over time.
- Drive Sales and Leads: Strategically create campaigns that influence purchase decisions, promote new products or services, and generate qualified leads.
- Showcase Expertise: Email content can position manufacturers as thought leaders in their industry, sharing valuable knowledge and insights that resonate with their target audience.
Client Successes with Email Marketing
When it comes to effectively utilizing email marketing as a manufacturing company, the opportunities are endless. As with any digital marketing channel, your strategies should work together to achieve your business objectives, that’s why getting clear on what goals you want your email marketing tactics to ladder up to is a crucial step. Once your goals are established, it’s then time to define your audience and determine if any segmentation is needed to create a more personalized experience for your email subscribers.
Even after an email campaign goes live, however, expert marketers know that the work doesn’t end there. To achieve peak performance, it’s imperative to monitor email metrics and make ongoing optimizations. In one scenario, we focused on expanding an Abandoned Cart email series for a client. These types of emails are highly valuable and are opportunities to convert potential leads who are already thinking about your product or services. Some of the key factors to consider when it comes to creating an abandoned cart campaign are timing and touchpoints. When should the email be sent? How many times should a business reach out to its customers?
According to an article published by Rejoiner, “The most effective abandoned cart email campaign is a series of emails that maintains contact with the customer until they complete their order. A campaign that features fewer than three emails is likely leaving a significant amount of revenue on the table.”
Knowing that it’s most effective to reach customers quickly and maintain contact on several occasions, we recommended our client to expand their series from one email to three emails.
A key consideration we also kept in mind for all of this was our audience.
We knew that a large percentage of this manufacturer’s customers use browsers like DuckDuckGo as their primary search tool which led us to believe their audience is likely more concerned with online privacy and may not appreciate a sudden increase in emails. Because of this, we teamed up with our development department to get a custom code in place to cap the number of abandoned cart emails a customer could receive in a month, regardless of how many times they abandoned their cart.
The data that came back was strong. Each email in the series had over 60% total views with unique views sitting at around mid-30% for each. In addition, click-to-view (CTV) rates were over 20% with the CTV second email of the series reaching 28%.
Email Marketing Strategy for Manufacturers
To harness the power of email marketing effectively, manufacturers should keep key steps in mind for their approach. We recommend businesses:
1. Set Clear Objectives
Define specific goals, whether that’s increasing lead generation, improving customer retention, or boosting webinar attendance. Clear objectives can help shape content and eventually measure success.
2. Build and Maintain a Quality Email List
Quality over quantity is always the goal when it comes to email lists- this is why cleanses are so important! Build your list with contacts who have opted in and are likely interested in your offerings. Segment based on industry, job roles, or interests for targeted communication. Perform list cleanses on an annual basis and implement a sunsetting campaign if you have a large portion of contacts who are no longer engaging with your emails.
3. Dive in Content Strategy
Create valuable content that works to address pain points, trends, and challenges related to your target audience. Incorporate educational resources, case studies, product or service updates, and thought leadership articles to engage your audience.
4. Utilize Automation
Implement email automation to streamline your campaigns. Platforms like the emfluence Marketing Platform can help manufacturers send personalized emails at scale, automate nurtures, and schedule campaigns for optimal timing. This enables you to efficiently walk your leads through the customer journey and maintain consistent communication with clients.
5. Measure Successes (and Failures)
Track key metrics such as click-through, conversion, and even unsubscribe rates. These are important insights that can help you gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns. Use the information to analyze what works and what doesn’t to continuously refine your strategy.
B2B Manufacturing Marketing Tips & Tools
As a marketer at an agency with a brilliant dev team, I’m lucky enough to work with software engineers who can build what I need to best serve clients.
One of the best tools built for a client integrates with their complex website and the emfluence platform. This was a complicated situation because this client sells thousands of unique parts and equipment, but these email campaigns needed to target specific customers with specific orders made in a specific timeframe. This custom-designed tool allows me to configure lifecycle email campaigns to run based on part categories or individual part numbers. With it, I’m able to select the number of emails to send along with their timing, the products the campaigns are related to, where images should go, and more.
However, we don’t all have a skilled developer in our back pocket. That’s why I also rely on a lineup of email marketing tools that help my day-to-day run more smoothly. Here are a few I enjoy using:
- Zapier: Allows you to create integrations between two apps or platforms that don’t have pre-built integrations.
- Email Preview IO: Allows you to create a .png or PDF file of an email from HTML or .eml file. This is great for sharing proofs of emails among numerous stakeholders.
- Really Good Emails: An awesome resource for email inspiration and to stay up to date on trends.
- List Cleansing Tool: Take your pick here- a list cleanse tool keeps your contact list healthy and ensures you’re not sending to bad/blacklisted email addresses. We currently leverage List Certified in the emfluence Marketing Platform.
- Email On Acid: Shows you previews of how your email will appear across inbox providers and devices and offers tips and tools on inbox placement. This is also a tool that’s been integrated with the emfluence Platform to help marketers visualize their email sends.
The Takeaway
Email marketing is a powerful tool that provides manufacturers with an opportunity to engage clients, build credibility, and drive sales. Targeted campaigns optimize marketing efforts and lead to sustainable growth in a competitive landscape.
Implementing a robust email marketing strategy requires dedication, creativity, and a deep understanding of your audience and their needs. Looking for some guidance here? emfluence can help. No one knows email marketing and automation like us- just check out the services we offer to guide you through the process! From lists to nurtures, we’ve overseen it all and can help you find success.
Ready to jump right into collaborating? Contact our team today to set up a chat with your new strategic marketing partner.
