There has been a lot of debate over the last couple of years about whether Email Marketing is still an effective marketing strategy for selling Business to Business (B2B) products and services in today’s world of “content marketing” and “social selling” through blogs, LinkedIn, Google and other social media channels.

We are bombarded by views that suggest buyers prefer having relevant and engaging content available and is the this new key to creating new leads for your business. Ever heard the phrases “content is king” or “email marketing is dead”?

It’s not all bad.

The thing is that these days you need to consider all the tools available to reach your prospects and customers – whether it be via networking, referrals, video, online ads, social media or emails and find the right mix for your target market and their stage of the “buying cycle”.  The truth is it’s not Email Marketing that’s bad – it’s that many times Email Marketing is done badly. But so is Social Media Marketing. So is Advertising. So is Networking. So is much of the content that people publish.

So email marketing by itself is not bad – it’s the way some businesses implement email marketing. You know what I mean – the spammy “sell, sell” type of emails.

The most effective type of Email Marketing.

A recent article I read from Chief Marketer, called “Enewsletters Outperform B2B Promotional Emails: Study” sums up the issue brilliantly. Instead of sending emails saying, “look at my great promotion” you need to be sending enewsletters that have good content relevant to your prospects and customers.

Why? Because customers engage more with emails that have real content and are not just promotional. The study showed that:

• Enewsletters generated 21.1% unique opens and 4.5% unique clicks vs.

• Promotional Emails that generated 16.3% unique opens and 2.8% unique clicks.

A dramatic increase in engagement.

With over 28% more unique opens and 60% more click-throughs for Email Marketing with a newsletter format vs. promotional format you get a dramatic increase in reader engagement.

What does more engagement mean? It means more people open the email and more people click on the links in the email. That means more people visit your website and/or understand your expertise, what you can offer and how you can help solve their business problems. If they don’t open the email or don’t click on the links it’s a wasted opportunity.

Don’t dismiss Email Marketing too soon

So make sure you don’t dismiss Email Marketing as part of your Marketing Strategy too soon – but rather look at the type of Email Marketing you are doing and make sure you are doing enewsletters not just email promotions.