How to Run a Successful B2B Email Marketing Campaign

With so many digital platforms emerging in 2023, it can feel overwhelming to keep up with digital marketing. How does an insurance agency prioritize its resources, and which digital marketing efforts are truly worth the investment? Despite the rise of social platforms TikTok and Instagram, small businesses can rest easy knowing that email marketing is still one of the most effective tools out there.

While email campaigns are important for reaching consumers, they’re just as crucial for connecting with companies — aka B2B (business-to-business) marketing. For insurance agents looking to connect with corporate clients, running successful B2B email campaigns is paramount. Here are five tips to get you started.

Figure Out Your Goals

Before you start designing email campaigns or writing copy, take some time to figure out your overarching goals. This can be high-level, but if you’re able to, try to create benchmarks that you’ll aim to meet after a certain time. Metrics like click-through rate, open rate, conversions, and more can all be tracked and compared over time, so you can analyze which campaigns resonate with recipients — and which email campaigns are not so successful.

Segment Your Audiences

If your agency has existed for a while, you likely already have an established list of corporate contacts. But ne of the worst mistakes you can make is lumping everyone together for every single campaign email. Instead, you’ll want to segment your audiences into different personas so that bespoke campaigns can be crafted to speak to related groupings.

For instance, perhaps you have a “highly interested” audience persona as well as an audience persona for brand-new contacts. This will allow you to target different campaigns with the right messaging towards each list — familiarity and follow-up emails can go to the former email list, while introductory emails can go to the latter.

Take Advantage of Automation

Similarly to segmenting your audiences, you’ll want to create a variety of emails that are sent based on “triggers.” Most email marketing software has the tools to do this, or you can work with another party to create automation that is right for your company. This automation will save you the time and trouble of reaching out to contacts each day, and will instead send out specific marketing information when it makes the most sense to do so — i.e., a potential client interacts with your business at a floor show, or requests information from your website.

Design Strong Templates

Save yourself the work of making every email from scratch and craft templates you can repeatedly use across your campaigns. This will also ensure that your messaging has a coherent, clean aesthetic. Be cognizant of the amount of text you include in the body of your email — don’t overdo it! — and be sure to include a call-to-action (CTA) within every email. Graphics and photos are also key to a powerful email, and help break up larger chunks of text so that the recipient doesn’t ignore your overall message.

Your Subject Line Matters

Think about how many emails you receive each day that end up in the trash folder. One of the best ways to stand out is by crafting strong subject lines! In both the subject line and body copy, your email campaigns should reflect your business’s overall tone and voice — but when it comes to a subject line, it’s crucial to be succinct. Try to stick to 5 words maximum (so your subject line doesn’t get cut off!), and don’t be afraid to throw an emoji in there if it makes sense, as these visual cues can help your email stand out from the crowd.