Enterprise Email Marketing Guide: What You Need to Know
On this page, we’ll answer all your burning questions about enterprise email marketing, including:
- What is enterprise email marketing?
- How does enterprise email marketing differ from traditional email marketing?
- Why should I invest in email marketing for enterprise businesses?
- How do I do email marketing for enterprise businesses successfully?
Need a hand with your enterprise email marketing strategy?
WebFX has a team of over 450 marketing experts that can help you launch a successful email marketing strategy. Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our email marketing services!
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What is enterprise email marketing?
Enterprise email marketing is a strategy that involves sending diverse sets of emails to a larger pool of subscribers. When you do enterprise email marketing, you send emails frequently to these large audiences to boost brand recognition, engagement, and revenue.
How does enterprise email marketing differ from traditional email marketing?
Now that we’ve answered, “What is enterprise email marketing?” let’s answer the next most common question: How does enterprise email marketing differ from typical email marketing?
While these two types of email marketing may use some of the same general strategies, there are a few critical differences between having an enterprise and a traditional email strategy in place.
Here are a few worth noting:
1. Enterprise email has more contacts
One of the most significant differences between enterprise email marketing and traditional email marketing is enterprise companies have a bigger contact list. More people tend to follow these companies, which means they have a larger list of subscribers.
Many basic email plans come with limits and can’t handle the volume of subscribers with an enterprise business. So, an enterprise email marketing plan is necessary to manage your contact list.
2. Enterprise email processes more data
With more subscribers comes more interactions and more data. You’ll get data on valuable metrics like clicks, clickthrough rate (CTR), open rate, and more. This data helps you make actionable decisions.
A basic email plan may not have the power to process and comb through the volume of data you get from your email campaigns. However, an enterprise email strategy will provide email marketing software that can handle processing your level of data.
3. Enterprise email sends a higher volume of emails
When you have an email marketing strategy in place, you’re continually sending emails to your subscribers.
As an enterprise business, the volume of emails is even higher. Not only do you have more subscribers to send emails to, but you have more diversity in your email strategy due to increased segmentation.
With a basic email strategy, you may only have three or four different segments for sending emails. However, an enterprise business could easily double that amount or be higher because of the vast number of subscribers.
An enterprise email marketing strategy ensures that you still deliver a tailored experience even with a higher volume of emails.
Why invest in enterprise email marketing?
If you’re on the fence about investing in enterprise email marketing, here are a few reasons you’ll want to invest in the strategy:
1. Enterprise email marketing helps you nurture leads
One of the biggest reasons to invest in enterprise email marketing is that it enables you to nurture leads. When you have a list of subscribers interested in hearing from your business, you have a direct connection that allows you to send promotional material straight to their inbox.
As a result, you can continually send helpful information to nurture these towards choosing your business when they’re ready to convert.
2. Enterprise email marketing keeps your brand at the forefront
One of the most significant benefits of enterprise email marketing is keeping your brand at the forefront of your audience’s mind. Since you’re continually sending content to your subscribers, they’re reminded of your business and think about your offerings often.
So, when it comes time to convert, these prospects will have your brand top-of-mind and be more likely to choose your business as a result.
3. Enterprise email marketing increases sales
Email marketing for enterprise businesses is one of the most effective ways to increase sales for your company. Email marketing boasts a return on investment (ROI) of 4400% –– about $44 for every $1 spent.
Since you’re sending promotions straight to your audience’s inbox, they’re more likely to choose your business when they’re ready to convert.
4. Enterprise email marketing helps you recover lost sales
Have you ever added products to your cart and ended up leaving the page before buying?
If so, you’re part of the 88% of people who abandon their carts online. Cart abandonment is an ongoing problem for ecommerce businesses, but an email marketing strategy can help solve that issue.
With email marketing, you can recover lost sales by sending abandoned cart emails. These emails remind prospects of the items in their carts and encourages them to complete the checkout process. As a result, you can recover sales that you may have lost otherwise.
Enterprise email marketing software: How to find the right software
A huge component of email marketing is enterprise email marketing software. When you’re sending hundreds to thousands of emails, you can’t do all of it without the help of tools. Finding the right email marketing software, though, can be a challenge.
Here are some characteristics to look for in your enterprise email marketing software:
1. Email automation
A key component you’ll want to look for with your email marketing software is automation. Automated emails are critical to helping you save time and engage prospects at the right time.
Trying to send emails manually is not possible as an enterprise business. You have a lot of subscribers and a lot of different types of emails to send. You need email automation to help simplify the process and take the work off your plate.
When you look at enterprise email marketing software, look for automation features. You want to automate emails like welcome emails and set up if/then/else scenarios. If your email software allows you to do these tasks, it’s a good one to consider.
2. Advanced segmentation
When you learn how to do enterprise email marketing, you discover how critical segmentation is to your campaign.
With thousands of subscribers, not everyone is interested in the same things from your enterprise business. You don’t want to send generic mass emails that don’t pertain to your audience’s business.
That’s why you need advanced segmentation features.
With advanced segmentation, you can group subscribers based on their interests in your business. For example, you may have one group of subscribers interested in IT equipment while others are interested in your cloud services.
With advanced segmentation, you can separate these two groups and send them emails focused on the products of interest. As a result, you keep your subscribers continually interested and engaged.
Your enterprise email marketing software needs advanced segmentation to ensure you send the right message at the right time.
3. A/B testing
Another feature you need with your enterprise email marketing software is A/B testing.
A critical component of email marketing is A/B testing. When you create emails, you want to put out the best version of your email. You need to test emails to see what drives the best results.
A/B testing enables you to test one element at a time to see which version works best. You only want to test one aspect as testing multiple parts at a time can muddy results and make it difficult to know what’s impacting engagement.
Your email marketing software should offer testing so you can test different elements like:
- Your subject line
- Your email header
- Your graphics
- Your call to action (CTA) button
- And more!
Look for software that makes it easy for you to conduct A/B tests and make the changes.
4. Custom dashboard
Another feature you want to see with your enterprise email marketing software is a custom dashboard. When you invest in enterprise email marketing, you want to track your campaigns to see how they perform.
There are dozens of metrics you can track with email marketing, including:
- Open rate
- Clickthrough rate (CTR)
- Bounce rate
- Conversion rate
- Unsubscribes
- Spam complaints
- And much more!
With so many metrics at your fingertips, you want to track what matters most to your campaigns. Instead of trying to sift through all the metrics, you want to create a custom dashboard to see the metrics that matter most first.
Your email marketing software should include a custom dashboard to make it easy to track your campaigns.
5. Email templates
When you run an email marketing campaign, you will send multiple types of emails to your subscribers and customize them for your different segments of subscribers. Email templates are critical for helping you expedite this process.
You want to choose email marketing software, like MyEmailFX, that comes with reusable templates. These templates will make it easy for you to expedite the email process every time you send emails.
For example, if you send a weekly newsletter, you can use an email template to keep your newsletter looking consistent. Additionally, all you have to do is swap out the old information and put in the new.
Make sure your email marketing software has templates so creating emails is a breeze!
6. Support
The last feature to look for with your enterprise email marketing software is support. When you invest in email marketing software, you want to know a team that can help you solve any issues, should you run into them, backs the platform.
Your email marketing software should have a support line for you to contact. It can be through email, chat, or phone.
Having support is critical to resolving issues quickly and ensuring your email marketing strategy continues without a hitch.
How to do enterprise email marketing successfully
While finding the right software is a crucial component to helping you do enterprise email marketing successfully, there are a few other best practices to follow.
Here are six best practices to help you nail your strategy!
1. Segment your subscriber list
If you want to know how to do enterprise email marketing, start by segmenting your subscriber list. You’ll have more subscribers as an enterprise business, so segment your list to deliver the most personalized experience.
To segment your subscriber list, start by creating buyer personas for your company. Buyer personas are fictional representations of real customers for your business. These personas help you understand who you’re targeting, so you can market to them better.
You can create buyer personas by looking at your typical customers and defining them by characteristics like:
- Age
- Gender
- Occupation
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Socioeconomic status
- Buying habits
Once you have your personas established, you can segment subscribers based on the persona they fit.
By segmenting your subscribers, you can send people content that’s most relevant to them, so you can increase their chances of converting.
2. Personalize your subscriber’s experience
Once you have your subscribers segmented, the next step to creating a successful enterprise email marketing strategy is to personalize your audience’s experience. Everyone wants something different from your business, so you must deliver a tailored experience.
You can personalize your audience’s experience by:
- Sending content that’s personally relevant to them
- Using the subscriber’s name in the email subject line or within the email content
- Mention the subscriber’s location in the email (“Memphis Member Exclusive”)
- Send trigger emails based on their behaviors (looked at an item, send an email about that same item)
- Suggest products relevant to their interests
A personalized experience will lead to higher engagement and more conversions for your enterprise business.
3. Create an enticing subject line
If you want to know how to do enterprise email marketing effectively, start by creating an enticing subject line. Your subject line is the first thing subscribers see when your email arrives in their inbox.
Considering that 47% of email subscribers open your emails based on the subject line, you must immediately catch their attention and entice them to open your email.
So, how can you craft an email subject line that drives up your open rate?
Here are some suggestions:
- Ask a question and provide the answer inside the email
- Trail off (You won’t believe this sale…)
- Personalize with the subscriber’s name
- Use emojis that fit the context (like the shoe emoji for a shoe sale)
4. Create email drip campaigns
Next in this enterprise email marketing guide, let’s talk about email drip campaigns. Email drip campaigns are fundamental to helping you keep prospects engaged with your emails.
With email drip campaigns, you send out automated emails to your subscribers based on their actions with your business. These emails engage prospects continually and get them moving down the sales funnel.
There are multiple types of email drip campaigns you can create, including:
- Welcome campaigns
- Retargeting campaigns
- Abandon cart campaigns
- Post-purchase campaigns
For example, let’s say someone decides to join your email list. You could set up an email drip campaign to first send subscribers an email and thank them for joining your list. Then a few days later, you could follow up by inviting these subscribers to follow your social media profiles.
The final email in your welcome series could be a “get to know you” survey, where you invite subscribers to share their interests so that you can market to them better.
Email drip campaigns are fundamental for keeping prospects engaged and progressing towards converting (or converting again!)
5. Create email templates
If you want to know how to do enterprise email marketing right, start by creating email templates. When sending dozens of emails to different prospects, it’s time-consuming to build every email from scratch. That’s where email templates can help.
Email templates enable you to build an outline for your emails, so all you must do is plug in the new information each time you send a different email. You can create templates for different types of emails, from promotional email templates to informational email templates.
When you create an email template, make sure it fits your brand’s unique style. You want to carry your branding throughout the email to deliver a consistent look and feel.
6. Test your emails
The last thing you need to remember with email marketing for enterprise businesses is to test your emails. You want to put out the best version of your email, so you must do trial and error to determine what works for your subscribers.
As shared earlier, you can test elements like your:
- Subject line
- Multimedia
- CTA button style
- CTA button placement
- Email length
By testing your emails, you’ll drive better results with your campaigns.
Need help with enterprise email marketing?
Email marketing for enterprise businesses is a huge undertaking, and when you’re busy managing other critical tasks, you don’t have the time to dedicate to it. That’s where the team at WebFX can pick up the slack.
We have over 300 marketing experts that can help you create, manage, and optimize your email marketing campaign. You can count on our expert knowledge to help you craft a strategy that drives results.
We’ve driven over $2.4 billion in revenue in the past five years, making us an unmatched partner for success.
Ready to turn more leads into sales with your email marketing campaign? Contact us online or call us today at 888-256-9448 to speak with a strategist about our email marketing services!