Write B2B Email Copy Your Leads Will Actually Read

More than 306 billion emails are sent and received every single day, all across the world. So, despite some experts claiming that email marketing is dead - it’s still going strong and bringing B2B businesses loads of opportunities. So, if you’ve invested some thought into building a solid mailing list, you’re onto a pile of potential revenue. Take a look at these stats by Backlinko:

• 40% of B2B marketers say email marketing is a vital tactic in their success.
• 59% of B2B marketers also cite emails as their top channel to generate revenue.
• 79% of B2B marketers find email marketing the most successful channel to share content.
• More than 50% of B2B prospects check their email 10 times a day.

How do you write a converting and goal-driven B2B email copy? It all comes down to a few copywriting strategies and tricks that you should apply to both the subject line of your message and the message body itself. Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Subject Line

A B2B subject line is the gatekeeper of your entire email: no one gets to read your email copy if they aren't motivated enough to open your email in the first place.

Here are a few things you need to know to write an attention-capturing, motivating subject line:

Suggest action

A B2B prospect should never be left wondering what you want from them or why you reached out in the first place.

Don’t assume that your potential client knows how the sales process works, and definitely don’t assume that they’re going to spend their time deciphering an odd, cryptic email from you. Make it easy for your prospect to take the next step into the sales cycle, by articulating a clear, specific ask or call to action.

One way to use effective, actionable language in email subject lines is by incorporating verbs, such as "take," "download," "reserve," "ask," "buy," “book”, “call” etc.

Personalize, personalize, personalize

In a study conducted by Experian Marketing Services - personalized subject lines make it easy to boost email open rates by 29.3% across industries.

Personalization of emails has evolved since - “Hi [first name]” was the only personalized part of the entire email. Today, we have access to a range of tools and data to personalize messages based on where a person is, in their buying decision.

Of course, guessing who your target audience is and what they’re looking for will not get you anywhere. But knowing your buyer persona definitely will. Here are a few ways to use your buyer persona data, to help craft an effective B2B email:

• Use contextual subject lines that set the right expectations about the content of your email.
• Segment your list based on time zones, so customers receive messages at the right time of the day
• Set up specific trigger emails based on lead behavior.

Prioritize clarity over "catchiness."

Your subject lines should pique the recipient’s interest, of course.

But, write a subject line that is clear first and catchy second. In a B2B marketing copy - clarity should always, always, always be the number one priority. After you've drafted a crystal clear subject line, you can also make it catchy, funny, cute, or whatever you’d like. But never sacrifice a concise copy for the entertainment value.

Step 2: Email Body

Now that you've crafted a spectacular email subject line, you have your audience's full attention on the body of your email. So, how do you write a copy that will get them clicking? Here are a couple of important points you should consider:

The BAB Message Structure

While writing an eye-catching subject line is helpful to lure the reader into opening your email, the body of your B2B message is what truly matters when it comes to successful conversions. To help you write compelling copy in your email, you can use the Before-After-Bridge (BAB) formula.

The BAB formula is a copywriting strategy that's designed to make an offer that would satisfy the right wants and needs of your email recipient. There are 3 essential steps to this formula:

• Show the reader the ‘Before’ situation. You start your message with a description of the reader’s work-life before getting acquainted with your solution. Your task is to make the reader painfully aware of their struggles - and show them how all of them can be gone with your help.

• Show the reader the ‘After’ situation. You continue your email with a situation, where their heart-wrenching problem has been solved with your solution. In this part, your task is to make the recipient feel the urgency to solve the ‘before’ problem as soon as possible.

• Bridging the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ situations. You conclude your email message by introducing your product or service and how they become a connecting bridge between these two situations.

Why does the BAB formula work? In human psychology, there is a notion of FOMO (fear of missing out): which refers to the feeling that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are. When we feel like we are missing out on something, we are subconsciously prompted to ‘join the crowd’ and enjoy the same benefits everyone else does. That’s why the BAB technique is an easy way to structure your B2B email messages and catch the attention of your reader.

Focus on benefits, not features

You surely know the value of your email. But does your audience?

The main goal of B2B emails is to communicate the value of the service or product to the customer as directly as possible. So, focus on the benefits - rather than the features: if you're promoting a tool to a mining company, your narrative isn’t what this material it's made of and how amazing it is. Your body should be about how much better, faster, cheaper, etc. your prospect's operations will become with this new tool.

Without an initial offer of a solution, you won’t have much to offer your reader. So, focus your email message on how you can solve their business challenge: will your prospect be able to speed up production time, increase their profits or make their work lives easier?

Be Brief

One of the worst mistakes you can make - is trying to shove the entire story into one email message. Think about when you open a marketing email: do you read every single word in there? That’s doubtful. It's more likely that you scan the page for relevant information: you skim over the message and decide whether you want to take action or not.

So if you're sending an email with endless walls of words, you're making it much more difficult for recipients to decide whether they want to click through, simply because they can't quickly sift through the info in your email.

Instead, find a way to summarize what the reader will acquire, in a compelling and clear way: use lots of white space, bold letters, and bullet points to attract the viewer’s eyes to the right parts of your copy.

Final Words

Email marketing matters for every business: it’s vital for nurturing customer relationships, generating new leads, and growing your business further.

But unfortunately, too many tech companies look at email copy as something to be done and forgotten. Just like with any marketing content -  B2B emails aren’t going to perform as well as they could if they’re not taken seriously. But if you’re ready to give it the time and thought it deserves, you might find getting impressive results is easier than you imagined.