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Email marketing has changed significantly the past few years. As a result, many email marketers today are filled with uncertainty. This is made worse by organizations protecting their own strategies as if they're top secret. This layer of secrecy prevents the sharing of knowledge and best practices. The good news is, the email marketing team at THAT Agency has put together this article containing the most frequently asked email marketing questions and answers.

1. Are B2B email marketing campaigns still worth it?

Email marketing still has an incredibly high ROI – more so than most other approaches. The most obvious reason why is that it's extremely low cost. There's not a significant investment to send out emails.

Furthermore, B2B email marketing campaigns typically function off of subscription lists. If someone has chosen to be on your subscription list, they want to see your emails.

Email is one of the few formats of communication people check daily. The same can't even be said for voicemails any longer.

2. Can I still use an older list?

This is where that low cost of investment is a big advantage. Some email addresses may no longer be used. Other subscribers will be happy to hear from your business again. You can clear out older email addresses using a verification tool – this can update addresses that are no longer in use.

Beyond this, send away to the addresses that are verified. You can do this cautiously, by using older lists in phases. Rather than sending your email marketing campaign to the old list all at once, you can select out a section, send, and observe your results.

This is one way to keep yourself safe from complaints. Complaints can impact the delivery of emails across an entire ISP. Commit to old lists in stages, and back off if you start receiving complaints.

3. What about non-subscribers?

You can send emails to addresses that haven't opted in to receiving email marketing messages from you. It's not against U.S. law, but it is an easy way to start earning those complaints. As mentioned, complaints can result in your lists getting impacted across an entire ISP – it's not worth the risk. (Note: It is against the law in certain countries, such as Canada.)

The better approach is to only email to those who you know are interested and have requested to receive your messages. In other words, send emails to customers and high-rated prospects. Not everyone who will be interested in your content will have subscribed. Again, this is contextual. Back off and reconsider your approach and email content if you start receiving complaints. You don't want those to build up.

4. Are your emails even making it?

There's no direct way to know whether a specific email goes to the inbox instead of the junk folder. Remember that B2B email marketing campaigns are a matter of rates and numbers, though. If you can't know for sure where your emails end up, you can at least estimate how many are really making it into inboxes.

An email service provider (ESP) can do a few test runs to seed addresses to assess the percentage of your emails that will make it into inboxes. This can serve as a fairly accurate estimate of what will happen when you start emailing for real.

Spam filters will look at a few factors that you can directly impact. They'll consider the sender's IP reputation, domain reputation, the subject line, the from line, the content of the email, and whether someone has engaged with your emails in the past. It's not an exact science, but it is one you can gain an advantage with if you're careful about these elements.

5. When should I send emails?

One of the biggest email marketing questions is how often to send them. Send emails too often and you're annoying and desperate. Don't send them enough and you're out of mind. A good way to gauge is to send emails in proportion to how often someone visits your site.

This can be difficult to measure, but 1-2 times a week is a good range. This doesn't necessarily mean twice every single week, unless you're getting really good engagement off of your emails. 1-2 times a week means to average it out.

Again, it depends on how well your email marketing content is tailored. Good content means people will be interested in more emails. Lack of content means don't push your luck too hard until you have something worth putting in those emails. B2B email marketing campaigns can't survive without content that you'd actually be interested in clicking on.

In Closing

An experienced digital marketing company can optimize your email content, lists, delivery, and send times for a stronger return on your investment. Contact the experienced digital marketers at THAT Agency via telephone at 561.832.6262 to learn more, or submit a request for proposal for email marketing services today.

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Editor's Note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.