An analysis of more than 15,000 B2B campaigns and 50 million emails has revealed the most fruitful time for a new business approach, with those sent on Mondays at 11am generating the highest response rate from a marketing campaign.
While the analysis has landed too late for this week, the email that arrives at 11am on a Monday will need to be the third follow-up to secure the most leads.
The data also suggests that companies need to keep the email short and to the point with those less than 250 words being read and opened the most.
According to The State of Prospecting 2023 report, published by Sopro, email is still the top marketing channel when it comes to new business prospecting.
Now in its second year, the report reveals that 59% of marketers believe email is over twice as effective at generating leads than channels such as pay per click and paid social media, despite some marketers focusing spend in those channels.
Claimed to be one of the most comprehensive B2B prospecting reports published, it also provides guidance to ensure email campaigns are successful, providing pointers on how to build your audience and database, personalisation tips, and useful information on forming prospecting campaigns.
When it comes to new business, most decision makers want a one-to-one approach, with referrals (42%) and webinars or face-to-face events (24%) coming in second and third place after personalised email, to cultivate business leads.
The whitepaper also shows that 77% of B2B buyers prefer to be contacted over email – more than double any other channel. Customers also state that they want content of the email campaign to be engaging and share information and knowledge.
Sopro CEO and co-founder Ryan Welmans said: “We’ve analysed twice as many emails as last year – nearly 50 million. We’ve surveyed five times as many sales and marketing professionals. Our data scientists have dived deeper than ever into our prospecting results, drawing out new insights and new ways to optimise your prospecting.
“We do understand that not everybody is as obsessed with prospecting as we are. But whether your business uses email prospecting or not, this report has something for everyone from the best time to send an email to how to create a campaign to ensure it gets opened and read.
Key tips on how to create the perfect email campaign to help businesses generate engagement and leads include:
Don’t write spammy subject lines. Most of us can spot a spam email from the subject line. Avoid clickbait phrases, excessive punctuation, and money symbols.
Only send emails to people who want them. You can’t just send out emails willy-nilly. There needs to be a bonafide interest – either they signed up to receive them or (in the B2B world) you genuinely think they’d be interested in your product or service.
Use a reputable IP address. If spam emails have come from your IP address previously, your emails are more likely to be flagged as spam.
Increase your open rate. Low engagement rates can mean your emails are more likely to go into spam as well. Start with your targeting and subject lines – a subject we’ll return to shortly.
Clean up your email list. You might be emailing a number of dead email accounts and not even know it. If you maintain a list at all, it’s worth spring-cleaning it every now and then.
Don’t lie. Misleading your clients either in your subject line or in the email copy is a big red flag.
Avoid spam trigger words. There are a huge number of words that set off spam alarms.
Target the right people. Most importantly, you need to be targeting the right people. If you’re selling computer software and you’re sending it to tree surgeons, an amazing email is still going to get marked as spam because it’s not relevant to them.
Welmans concluded: “What this report shows is that the personal touch is still very much valued, whether that is a bespoke email, a face-to-face meeting or hosting a webinar or event to share information and knowledge. The personal approach is very much essential when it comes to marketing and engaging with new customers.”
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