By: Constant Contact

Businesses that primarily market to other businesses can have a tough time perfecting their email marketing strategies.

Education is often a huge part of getting new clients, but you can’t just cram all of your product information into one email … unless you think your readers enjoy scrolling through a ten-page email. Tip: they don’t. So how can a B2B make the most of their email marketing to generate new leads?

It actually starts when you combine email marketing with a blogging strategy. To find out how it all works I recently talked with Marie Wiese, the founder of Marketing CoPilot, a consulting firm located in Markham, Ontario.

Here’s an edited transcript of our discussion:

Tell me a little bit about the company.

Marketing CoPilot provides optimized content marketing for small businesses to help them drive lead generation and connect with existing customers. Our target customers generate from $2 million to $25 million in revenue and have about 10 to 15 employees.

Unlike agencies that do point solutions and say, “I’ll do email or I’ll do SEO,” we think everything needs to be integrated from the very top of the food chain. We’ve been a business partner with Constant Contact for five years and have over 30 clients that use email marketingas part of their integrated strategies.

So what would you say is the most important thing B2Bs should keep in mind when developing an email marketing strategy?

Move away from ‘email blasting.’ When we work with clients, it’s important to help them understand good, clean, opt-in lists.

Email blasting does not help you build relationships or engage customers. You need valuable things to say that help earn your audience’s trust, so you can build up a community.

The community aspect is key, because most B2Bs are selling complex, expensive solutions. We need to use email to have a conversation about topics that customers care about. If they’re part of a community they trust because valuable content is being shared, then they’ll listen.

Profile:  After 13 years of email marketing, this website is my personal way of giving back to a noisy, fragmented industry driven by commoditized CPM rates. If you are a part of the email marketing industry or an email marketer at heart, I invite you to participate in this project and become a contributor/author to The Email Guide Blog. Website:  http://www.theemailguide.com Twitter:   http://www.twitter.com/theemailguide LinkedIn:   http://ca.linkedin.com/in/chiefemailofficer

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