Savvy wholesalers know how powerful B2B email marketing is in engaging and converting customers. When leveraged effectively in the onboarding process, this tool can set the tone for the entire business relationship.
The way you introduce your business, products, and services through your onboarding emails can impact the customer’s perception of your brand. Getting this right can be the difference between creating a successful partnership or a missed opportunity.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through how you can take advantage of B2B email marketing to improve your onboarding process. We’ll discuss its importance and provide actionable best practices that can transform how you welcome new wholesale clients.
So, let’s dive in!
B2B Email Marketing: What Are Onboarding Emails?
Onboarding emails encompass the initial communication businesses send to new customers who have recently engaged with their products and services or taken the crucial step of signing up on their website. These emails introduce your brand and walk your customers through their first steps. As such, they have the power to set expectations for the kind of partnership or relationship your business can provide.
There are different types of onboarding emails, such as:
1. Welcome emails
These emails officially welcome your customers, extending a greeting to new customers who signed up on your website or engaged with your offerings. It typically includes a personalized greeting, a message of thanks, and a brief overview of the next steps to take. If you’re sending this email right after they signed up, it may also contain information about accessing their account, including login credentials or links to set up their profile.
2. Educational content
Educational onboarding emails provide customers with valuable insights, tips, and information about your products and services. These are sent early in the onboarding process to help your customers get familiar with your offerings and your brand. Some content you can send out includes informative guides, articles, and tutorials.
3. Product introduction emails
As a wholesale business owner, you likely have an array of different products you want to sell in bulk. Product introduction emails can shine light on your offerings and make it easy for customers to discover what aligns with their needs. In these emails, you can consider highlighting best sellers, explaining key features and benefits, or encouraging them to explore your offerings further.
Why Are Onboading Emails Important?
According to an industry survey, 87.8% of B2B customers consider emails the best onboarding channel. This indispensable tool is an effective and straightforward way to connect with your clients and engage them early in their journey with your brand.
Here are some compelling benefits of B2B email marketing in the onboarding phase:
- Guides your clients: These emails help new wholesale clients navigate your website and your offerings, which can lead to quicker and more confident purchasing decisions.
- Builds trust: Onboarding emails demonstrate your willingness to help your customers navigate through your offerings, presenting you as a reliable potential business partner.
- Gives you a competitive edge: Industry insights reveal that welcome emails generate 320% more revenue than any other email, yet only 57.7% of companies send them out. By crafting compelling onboarding emails, you set yourself apart from competitors and increase your chances of capturing your customers’ attention.
- Reduces churn: Onboarding emails keep your customers engaged, ensuring you remain top of mind to your customers. In turn, this reduces the likelihood of them exploring alternative suppliers or services, boosting customer retention.
B2B Email Marketing Best Practices: 7 Tips For Creating Successful Onboarding Emails
Below, we’ve laid down seven actionable tips to help you elevate your B2B email marketing strategy during the onboarding phase.
1. Embrace automation
Automation is a strategic advantage you can leverage to save time and ensure a consistent and timely response to new customers. You can implement this strategy by automating essential aspects of early onboarding, such as sending out welcome emails, customer login credentials, or approval information.
Fortunately, there are tools you can use to make this a seamless process. Wholesale Lead Capture, for example, is a plugin tailored for wholesalers like you. It allows you to create user-friendly registration forms, automate welcome emails, and set up approval processes to fit the unique needs of your business.
With this powerful plugin, you can automate welcome emails as soon as the customer registers on your website. You also have the ability to choose between manual and automatic approvals to fit your business needs.
Throughout the process, you can automate account information emails to inform your valued B2B clients about their applications. They receive important details about their application status, login credentials, and next steps. As a result, you gain complete control over who gets to access your wholesale offerings while ensuring your clients are well-informed throughout their onboarding.
2. Personalize your approach
B2B email marketing is a powerful tool because it allows you to personalize your interactions with your wholesale customers. By personalizing your approach, you make your customers feel valued and understood, which increases the chances of engaging them.
Aside from using your customer’s name, it’s also crucial to tailor your messaging to address their needs. Tools like Wholesale Lead Capture allow you to gather relevant details about your customers during registration so you can segment them and tailor your emails accordingly.
For example, you can gather details about their industry and product preferences. With this information, you can tailor the product recommendations you send via email. As such, you present products relevant to their niche, increasing the possibility of a successful conversion.
3. Craft compelling subject lines
According to industry insights, a staggering 64% of email recipients decide on whether to open or delete emails based on the subject line. This compelling statistic highlights the critical role that subject lines play in the success of your B2B email marketing campaigns. After all, it is your golden opportunity to make a powerful first impression and capture the attention of your valued customers.
Below, we’ve compiled important guidelines that can help you craft enticing and engaging subject lines for your onboarding emails:
- Personalize: According to industry research, personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Whenever possible, include the customer’s name or business name in your subject lines.
- Ask questions: Experiment with questions that pique curiosity and make recipients eager to uncover the answers within your email.
- Use numbers or statistics: Numbers can make subject lines more compelling. For example, “Get 30% Off Your First Purchase.”
- Create a sense of urgency: Words such as “limited-time offer” or “exclusive invitation” are more engaging and encourage prompt action.
- Avoid spam triggers: Steer clear of spammy language, such as excessive punctuation marks and phrases commonly associated with spam emails.
4. Provide a clear call to action (CTA)
Call-to-actions (CTAs) guide your wholesale customers on the next steps to take, whether it’s logging in on their accounts, exploring your product offerings, or signing up for a webinar. A compelling CTA can significantly influence the success of your onboarding emails.
When crafting your CTA, choose concise and action-oriented language that tells your B2B customers what to do. For example:
- “Download your guide today!”
- “Sign up for our webinar”
- “Explore our latest products”
- “Complete your profile”
The placement and design of your CTA also matter. You’ll want to position it prominently within your email and use contrasting colors to make it stand out. Consider designing your CTA as a button or link.
Lastly, you’ll need to optimize it (and the rest of your email) for mobile viewing. According to industry insights, nearly 1.7 billion users check emails on their mobile devices, outnumbering those using their desktops to check emails. As such, you need to optimize your onboarding emails to make sure you’re catering to your target audience effectively.
5. Make it valuable
To engage your customers right from the get-go, your B2B email marketing efforts during onboarding should deliver real value. There are many content ideas you can explore early in the B2B buyer journey that your clients will surely appreciate.
For example, you can create campaigns to send out early educational content. These emails may contain information and helpful resources for new B2B customers, such as product guides, tutorials (especially if they have made their first purchase), and other informative content that addresses common pain points or queries.
It is also vital to build trust early in the customer journey, and you can do this by sharing your feedback and support channels. Make it clear to your customers that their input is valued and that you’re readily available to assist with any questions or concerns they may have.
6. Be mindful of the timing
The timing of your emails can also impact their effectiveness. For example, it’s best to send a welcome email right after a customer signs up. This ensures that your brand is fresh in their minds, and they can immediately begin their onboarding journey.
Especially during onboarding, it’s crucial to strike a balance and avoid overwhelming your customers with too much information. You can consider crafting an email sequence or a progressive onboarding strategy where you send a series of emails over a defined period. As such, you can gradually introduce your wholesale customers to your products without overwhelming them.
Additionally, to make the most of the emails you send out, consider aligning them to relevant seasons, holidays, or industry events. For example, if new customers sign up during Black Friday Season, you can tailor your onboarding emails to highlight special promotions or deals available during that time.
7. Measure, analyze, and optimize
To ensure the success and effectiveness of your B2B email marketing campaign for onboarding, it’s essential to measure and analyze the results. Begin by identifying the key performance metrics that align with your specific business goals. These metrics can vary depending on your objectives, but common ones include:
- Open Rates: The percentage of recipients who open your emails.
- Click-Through Rates (CTR): The percentage of recipients who click on links within your emails.
- Conversion Rates: The percentage of recipients who take desired actions after engaging with your emails, such as signing up or making a purchase.
- Unsubscribe Rates: The percentage of recipients who opt out of further emails.
Fortunately, there are a number of email marketing and analytics tools you can leverage to track and measure campaign performance. To take your efforts up a notch, consider A/B testing to try out the success of different subject lines, CTA buttons, and sending times. Then, use the data you gather to make improvements to your campaigns.
Lastly, don’t forget to provide feedback channels for your B2B customers. Surveys, forms, or direct communication channels on your onboarding emails encourage your customers to share their insights and suggestions. In turn, this feedback can be used to iterate your onboarding process to serve them better.
Conclusion
First impressions can make or break partnerships in the B2B business landscape. Perfecting your B2B email marketing during onboarding can be the difference between creating a lasting partnership or a missed opportunity.
In this guide, we’ve discovered the importance of B2B email marketing early in the customer journey and explored the advantages it offers. We’ve also provided actionable tips to help you craft successful onboarding emails for enhanced customer engagement and satisfaction.
To summarize what we’ve uncovered, let’s review the tips below:
- Leverage the power of automation
- Personalize your approach
- Create compelling subject lines
- Provide a clear call to action
- Make it valuable
- Be mindful of the timing
- Measure, analyze, optimize
Tools like Wholesale Lead Capture make it easy for wholesale business owners to improve the customer experience during onboarding. This powerful plugin allows you to create user-friendly registration forms and automate onboarding emails, ensuring your customers receive the attention and information the moment they sign up for your website.
Do you have any questions about crafting effective B2B onboarding emails? Which strategies are you most excited to implement in your e-commerce wholesale store? Let us know in the comments section below!
