Email remains the undisputed workhorse of B2B marketing, generating $42 for every $1 spent. It accelerates sales cycles, makes sharing content easy, and is also a cost-effective way to reach buyers. This won’t change any time soon.
But email marketing isn’t without its challenges, though. Increasing inbox competition, declining open rates, and evolving buyer expectations make it difficult for B2B marketers to cut through the clutter and stand out in the inbox.
Exactly how hard is it to stand out?
- In 2020, 306.4 billion emails were sent and received each day
- Most office workers probably receive more than 130 emails a day
- Generally, about one in five of those emails are opened … and of those emails, less than 3% actually generate a click-through
To help future-proof your email marketing strategy, we’re presenting three predictions for the future of email marketing, along with tips on how to succeed in this new email landscape. Let’s dive in.
Three Predictions for the Future of Email Marketing
1. AI Will Become Indispensable as a Virtual Assistant for Your Email
By 2025, AI will power about 95% of all customer and buyer interactions. It’s not hard to see why. After all, AI can help you:
- Automate repetitive tasks
- Personalize the user experience
- Optimize your email marketing campaigns for better results
As technology evolves and machine learning becomes more sophisticated, AI will become integral to email marketing success. AI-driven virtual assistants will become commonplace, helping marketers with everything from email list segmentation and management to content creation.
Unlike chatbots, AI virtual assistants’ abilities to naturally understand and respond to customer queries will make them invaluable in the email space. Additionally, they work independently without constant human supervision, freeing up your time to focus on other strategic tasks.
2. Companies That Embrace AI Will Outperform Their Peers
As AI becomes more sophisticated and used to personalize user experiences and offer seamless customer journeys, B2B revenue teams that embrace it will have a significant competitive advantage.
In fact, 54% of executives are already experiencing increased productivity, cost reduction, efficiency, and revenue growth using AI. Offering a better customer experience will be crucial to success in the future of email marketing.
3. Having a Trusted Brand and Maintaining a Human Touch Will Be Essential
As scammers also embrace AI-driven tools for email personalization, web security companies will do their best to detect, flag, and (in some cases) block AI-created email content. This will make it even more critical for companies to focus on developing a trusted brand.
To build trust, focus on developing solid relationships with your prospects and customers. Make sure your sales and marketing teams stay aligned to keep your message consistent across channels. Most importantly, be transparent and authentic in all your interactions.
How to Prepare for the Future of B2B Email Marketing
Develop Your Audience Segments
To succeed in this future of B2B email marketing, you need to develop a deep understanding of your audience. Audience segmentation will be crucial in ensuring each prospect receives targeted, relevant content that resonates with their specific needs.
Use demographic, firmographic, and behavioral data to analyze your audience and develop segments. Then you can send more personalized and relevant content, which will improve engagement and conversion rates.
Start Preparing Playbooks
With AI-powered tools taking on more email marketing tasks, it will be important for organizations to have playbooks in place. These playbooks will be useful for your existing team, but they’ll be essential for your AI software. Because they’ll provide the AI with guardrails and goalposts to effectively manage its personalization and output.
Think of your AI as a promising new hire. Great things are expected, but some training helps.
The Future of B2B Email Marketing Is Bright With These Three Simple Tactics
With the future of B2B email marketing looking bright, now’s the time for your revenue team to:
- Use AI to generate personalized content
- Utilize AI to automate the process of sending emails
- Allow AI to work as a virtual assistant
With the ability to personalize content and automate processes, segment, and manage your list, and even act as a virtual assistant, AI is poised to revolutionize email marketing. 6sense is an AI-driven platform that helps B2B marketers personalize the entire customer journey, from awareness to advocacy.
We’re bringing AI-driven enhancements to B2B email, too.
Our platform provides real-time intent data and account-based marketing tools that help you deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. This results in more qualified leads, shorter sales cycles, and increased revenue.
Discover how 6sense can help you prepare for the future of B2B email marketing. Request a demo today.
