• by Ray Schultz , May 15, 2018

B2B marketers just don’t get it, judging by The State Of B2B Marketing, a study by the UK firm SuperOffice. Of the firms studied, 59% used no email at all during a 90-day period. And what they did send was badly flawed.

For instance, 18% failed to optimize their emails for mobile devices. And 8% lacked an unsubscribe link — a clear offense in the age of consent.  

What’s more, they sent one campaign every 25 days — far from the optimal frequency. And instead of sending emails from a personal name -- the recommended practice -- 89% use a company name.

The results are based on 4,494 email campaigns studied by SuperOffice over a period of 90 days. The firm signed up for email campaigns on 1,000 websites. Almost half of the firms examined have 75 or more people.

These results seem to conflict with a recent study by BOP Design in the U.S. — at least in terms of email usage. BOP found that personalized email campaigns are used for lead nurturing by 80%. General email campaigns are sent by 64% and content marketing offers by 49%.  

In contrast, SuperOffice found that 13% of small businesses, 37% of the mid-sized firms and 22% of the large organizations use email marketing. 

But they do some things right. For example, 72% use images in their emails, and 18% conduct image-only campaigns. Only 10% send messages in plain text.

SuperOffice states that 60% of consumers prefer emails with images. However, emails with too many images and calls-to-action pull more poorly than simple messages. The average number of calls-to-action was 3.3, and some had up to 12.

What should companies do? Pretty much the opposite of what is reported here. SuperOffice recommends that B2B marketers:

1. Build their audience.
2. Send their email campaigns from a person.
3. Don’t leave their subscribers waiting.
4. Make their campaigns readable on any device.
5. Remember that less is always more in email marketing.
6. Use email to drive people to purpose.
7. Take email marketing laws very seriously.