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7 Incredible Examples of B2B Email Marketing (2023)

Abbey Wang

With the worldwide email marketing revenue set to touch $14 billion by 2025, the B2B marketing world doesn’t want to be left behind.

While 75% of B2B marketers use B2B email marketing software to assist with their content marketing, 64% monitor email engagement as a key metric to understand their B2B content performance.

So rest assured, B2B email marketing is alive and kicking. And in this blog post, we break down some of the better B2B email marketing examples to inspire you to take your B2B email marketing practices to the next level.

Without further ado, let’s get to it.

B2B Email Marketing Benefits

A B2B (Business to Business) marketing campaign is one whose target market is other businesses.

A B2B email campaign aims to connect with its target audience by integrating QR codes to generate leads, increase engagement, nurture relationships, and ultimately drive conversions and growth.


A well-strategized email marketing strategy could offer the following benefits for your B2B business:

  • Drives traffic to websites and landing pages;
  • Aspires to engage business customers meaningfully and enhance the customer experience;
  • Nurtures potential clients into hot, new leads;
  • Engages existing clients for repeat business;
  • Aims to find new upselling and cross-selling opportunities;
  • Boosts customer loyalty and hence customer retention;
  • Gains sign-ups for email newsletters or new trial users;
  • Identifies highly-interested leads to pass on to sales;
  • Increases brand awareness & visibility;
  • Facilitates educative understanding of B2B products & services;
  • Boosts thought leadership;
  • Fosters long-term relationship building and much more.

In short, B2B email marketing helps B2B businesses maximize the ROI (return on investment) on their marketing efforts through efficient targeting and effective messaging in an affordable way. For those looking to dive deeper into optimizing their B2B email marketing strategies, consulting with an agency for B2B marketing could provide the tailored guidance necessary to amplify your results. These agencies are well-versed in the nuances of B2B communication and can offer insights and strategies that are specifically designed to boost your business's performance in a competitive marketplace.

Next, let’s jump on to the B2B email examples we promised.

7 B2B Email Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Email Campaigns

Last Crumb

Last Crumb is an LA-based luxury cookie company offering a limited collection of handmade and freshly baked cookies with exclusive membership and corporate gifting options.

Welcome emails are email messages sent to assist new subscribers or potential customers with resources to get them started and create a positive connection between them and your brand.

Look at the welcome email below from Last Crumb to all its free email subscribers.

Subject Line: Cookies That Might Change Your Whole Damn Life

What we loved about the email:

  1. Startling email subject line: Whatever your email subject lines do, they must not be boring. This one certainly isn’t. We bet this one really stood out in the subscribers' inboxes because of the element of shock;
  2. Incredible copy: The messaging is kept in line with Last Crumb’s brand tone, conveying fun, warmth, and friendliness. We bet it made more than one email recipient smile;
  3. Great call to action (CTA): Not only is the email content kept engaging, but the CTA (“Peep the gram”) also does a neat job of getting the clicks by standing out.

Using a high-contrast template, Last Crumb keeps its email design simple yet eye-catching. A relevant product image makes the email even more enticing for the reader.

The Google Ads platform helps businesses promote their products or services by displaying targeted advertisements on Google search results, websites, and mobile apps.

This approach is especially effective for companies specializing in marketing for the travel industry, as it allows them to reach potential travelers at the right moment. By leveraging Google Ads, these businesses can significantly boost their visibility and engagement, driving more bookings and inquiries.

Below is an example of a user activation ad where Google wants to persuade users to start designing and running ads on its platform.

Subject Line: Get help creating your first ad

What we loved about this email campaign:

  1. Clean design: This is a great example of how simple use of whitespace and appropriate typographical principles can create a stunning email design that’s also highly readable;
  2. Valuable content: When you include action-oriented information in educational content, it becomes more valuable. One of the critical pain points for businesses is that they can find the entire process of creating PPC (Pay Per Click) ads overwhelming. Hence, Google’s content is spot on, helping this out with simple step-by-step advice;
  3. Inclusion of social proof: You may be more inclined to follow advice if you see that others have also benefited from it. By including powerful social proof of how other businesses have successfully used Google Ads to grow, you make your email more compelling to act on.

One important tip when writing such emails is to follow the "rule of one". This rule emphasizes the need to focus on a specific message or idea. For example, talk about one problem, one way to solve it, etc., and keep everything from the subject line, the headline, the email content, and the call to action in congruence with this main idea.

Divvy

Divvy is an online expense management solution that helps businesses streamline their financial processes by managing spending, allocating budgets, making payments, and more, from one easy-to-use platform.

The email below from Divvy was sent in early 2020, when COVID-19 was at its peak, taking a toll on human life and business activities.

Subject Line: April Update - We'll get through this together

What we loved about this email campaign:

  1. Use of cognitive empathy: When other businesses were worried and bracing for cover from the financial impact of COVID-19, Divvy decided to focus on their users instead. By collating and sharing resources that they thought would be useful for other businesses at this time, they showed thoughtfulness and selflessness. This is also reflected by the use of the word “We” in the email subject line;
  2. Simple sentences that are easy to make sense of (especially in trying times when people have far less patience to sit and read stuff);
  3. Attractive email design with an imaginative featured image that doesn’t overwhelm readability;

A lot of email marketing is enabling customer relationship management. We are not sure how many new customers Divvy got from the email above, but the brand won many hearts worldwide through its altruistic approach.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is an online social media marketing platform that offers businesses various digital marketing tools and features to manage and grow their presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.

Below is an email inviting the reader to a live webinar sharing tips and tricks on how to get the most out of their Sprout Social accounts.

Subject Line: [Invitation] Intro to Sprout Webinar

What we loved about this email campaign:

  1. Featured image with optimized text: The use of a non-generic featured image with conversion-optimized text in the form of a benefit-oriented headline on it is a great way to grab attention and get read;
  2. Use of specific social proof: The user testimonial sharing their experience of attending the same webinar is a great idea and will make the reader feel like they must too;
  3. Setting expectations right: The “What to expect from our webinars” section towards the bottom clearly mentions the duration and what specific engaging content the session is expected to cater to. Knowing this fully in advance can improve webinar attendance.

The open rate for this campaign could be further boosted by changing the current subject line to a more intriguing one that doesn’t give it all away at the start.

Also, it might help to A/B test with a different call-to-action (CTA) text on the button, such as “Learn How to Monetize My Social Media Now” instead of the generic “View Upcoming Webinars”.

Wistia

With Wistia, businesses can upload, manage, customize, and share high-converting video content with their target audience to capture leads and drive conversions, all while gaining data-driven insights and analytics.

Below is a simple announcement email introducing Wistia’s email list to their newest video creation, a Chrome extension called Soapbox.

Subject Line: Introducing Soapbox, Wistia’s video creation tool

What we loved about this email campaign:

  1. Captures the product in action: Following the cardinal rule of high conversions—“show, don’t tell”, it includes a high-quality visual of the product feature doing what it does, creating desire in the minds of the readers;
  2. Incredible copy: The messaging is assertive without being forceful. Additionally, it is concise enough to convey the best benefits in two to three lines, making it easy to read in a minute or less;
  3. On-brand email design: In keeping with Wistia's traditional blue brand color, everything from the whitespace to the CTA button and background image is color coordinated.

Keep your product or feature announcement emails short and to the point. Provide at least one irresistible benefit to make your readers run for it. Got more than one benefit to share?—spread across email sequence, one benefit per email, promoting the said feature or product line.

Shopify

Shopify is an online e-commerce platform that helps businesses and entrepreneurs set up search-engine friendly, sales-optimized, no-code online stores, manage products, process payments, manage inventory, and more, effortlessly.

The email below is an invite to a webinar that promises to solve ecommerce conversion problems.

Subject Line: 5 Easy to Use Online Logo Makers

What we loved about this email campaign from Shopify:

  1. Relevant content: It shares valuable content to nurture ambitious readers toward their business goals. Even though it might seem like a mishmash of different content pieces at first glance, all of the email contents are tailored to solve the readers' collective pain points;
  2. Low-profile upselling: Shopify has neatly included a button for the reader to extend their Shopify trial towards the top right portion of the email should they need it. This ends up giving the business more opportunities to convert them into a paying customer;
  3. Compelling subject line: The email offers a solution to business owners looking for simpler tools to design logos. Since the subject line quietly reveals this fact, anyone reading the email is more or less bound to click through.

Some email marketers might say, “Hey, you’re not supposed to mix so many different call-to-action elements and content types in one email”. But rest assured, if it's Shopify, they likely know what they’re doing, so we’d be happy to test this email with an open mind and be guided by the results.

Wix

Wix is an online no-code web design platform that allows users to create powerful websites, blogs, and online stores with customizable templates and simple drag-and-drop actions.

A Wix partner is a business or individual that partners with Wix and can design or optimize your Wix website for you. The email below is a callout to help those Wix readers who have an active subscription but are still struggling to get their website or blog ready. This message offers to help them find the right Wix partner for their business requirements.

Subject Line: Hire a Wix Partner to Create Your Website

What we loved about this email campaign from Wix:

  1. Clear headline: This email certainly doesn’t mince any words about what it’s trying to do—get you the help you need to get your web project done;
  2. Relevant featured image: Choosing the right featured image that truly adds value to your email can do wonders for conversions. This email is a great example of that; the vibrant colors and engaging composition immediately draw the reader in. You could even consider using AI image generation tools to explore different creative options for your featured images!
  3. Straightforward call-to-action (CTA): This tells the reader the next step they have to take to get out of the situation they find themselves in presently.

Although we love the brevity of this email, it might help to up the conversions if we were to dedicate a small paragraph to briefly discussing the problems the readers face. In this way, readers will feel well-understood and are more likely to read the rest of your email.

And that brings us to the end of this section. Let’s wrap it up with some key takeaways.

Conclusion - B2B Email Marketing Takeaways

We hope the B2B email marketing examples discussed above inspire you to create emails that engage your audience, build strong bonds with them, track results, and monetize those relationships for business growth.

Here are some key takeaways for B2B marketers:

  • A B2B email marketing campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. From email opens to link clicks, keep your B2B marketing strategies long-term;
  • Keep your email design mobile-friendly and your messaging concise and easy to understand;
  • Maintain your content up-to-date and original at all times;
  • No matter the size of the segment you’re emailing or the value of the product you’re selling, embrace data-driven marketing all the way for optimum results.

The success of your B2B email marketing campaigns is only limited by your imagination and patience to test what works. Getting rid of what doesn't work and incorporating lessons learned over time can help deliver more impactful engagement and higher conversions.