Enewsletters Outperform B2B Promotional Emails: Study

B2B enewsletters outperformed promotional emails in both unique open and clicks in a recent study from Experian.

“Newsletters filling a need—in a B2B market, you really want an informed customer, because you’re generally not talking about products that are an impulse buy,” says Shelley Kessler, manager, reporting and analytics, cross-channel marketing, Experian Marketing Services.

Experian looked at more than 400 brands in its analysis, and found that over half of its B2B clients are sending out enewsletters. In comparison, only 6% of its multichannel retail clients mail newsletters. “It speaks to the kind of products that are being sold,” notes Kessler.

Enewsletters generated 21.1% unique opens and 4.5% unique clicks, compared to 16.3% and 2.8%, respectively, for promotional emails.

Webinars and forums had the highest unique open and click rates for emails promoting B2B events. B2B marketers should be using emails to connect with attendees both before and after the event to reinforce the relationship. Unique open rates for the average webinar email were 20% for invitations and 26% for reminders, leaping to 36% post webinar.

The study also showed that while mobile does matter in B2B, the majority of B2B emails are still being read most thoroughly on desktops. More than 27% of the B2B emails studied were opened on mobile devices, but 92% of clicks still occur on desktops.

Blurred Lines
Overall, B2C and B2B marketers are taking pages from each other’s playbooks. While B2C marketers are showing increased interest in lead scoring, B2B marketers are focusing more on creative, offer and responsive design.

“They’re really considering how to get the customer to convert via email, versus just warming them up before they’re pitched over to a salesperson,” says Dave Walters, product evangelist for Silverpop.