What happens to B2B emails?

Posted on November 17, 2005 by Dave J.

I was asked a couple weeks ago: “What about all those email newsletters the trade publications send out? Does anybody read those?”

I’m not a direct marketer, so I didn’t really have a good idea, but as a potential newsletter advertiser, the question is a good one. DM News provides a good answer, as reported by MarketingVOX:

“This survey confirms our suspicions that a large percentage of BTB e-mail subscribers do not download images and prefer to scan or read their e-mails within the preview pane, and never fully open the e-mail,” said Loren McDonald, vice president of marketing at EmailLabs.”

So as an advertiser, I should be looking for email newsletters that are designed for this type of usage: “EmailLabs suggests that emails include a 2-3-inch preview pane header area containing no images but including key offers, article teasers and ‘In This Issue’ information.”

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  • Jonathan Ray

    Hi Dave,As an e-mail marketer, I’ve noticed a few trends… HTML e-mail get more opens than text but fewer clicks and vice versa. I agree with EmailLabs’ findings but I’d like to add that we have had much success with mixing up the formatting of the messages.From what I can tell, subscribers to e-letters tend to ignore messages that frequent their inbox, especially marketing messages. We’ve found great success with sending standard text e-mail in a letter format coming from our publisher with limited links. In fact the best performing e-mail I have ever delivered was simply one sentence and one link.If your brand is trusted and easily recognized by your target, try mixing in text with your marketing messages. You just might have the same luck, and it’s easier.

  • Jonathan Ray

    Hi Dave,As an e-mail marketer, I’ve noticed a few trends… HTML e-mail get more opens than text but fewer clicks and vice versa. I agree with EmailLabs’ findings but I’d like to add that we have had much success with mixing up the formatting of the messages.From what I can tell, subscribers to e-letters tend to ignore messages that frequent their inbox, especially marketing messages. We’ve found great success with sending standard text e-mail in a letter format coming from our publisher with limited links. In fact the best performing e-mail I have ever delivered was simply one sentence and one link.If your brand is trusted and easily recognized by your target, try mixing in text with your marketing messages. You just might have the same luck, and it’s easier.

  • Dave J.

    Jonathan–Great info. Tactical marketing means tuning for the situation, but that means paying attention to the audience.How many marketers or salespeople can keep their trap shut and just write a one sentence email.

  • Dave J.

    Jonathan–Great info. Tactical marketing means tuning for the situation, but that means paying attention to the audience.How many marketers or salespeople can keep their trap shut and just write a one sentence email.