Welcome to the latest episode of At the Forefront: Fintech Conversations!
To learn more about this podcast and explore our episode archive, click here.
In this episode, marketing expert and founder of Subjectline.com Jay Schwedelson joins Forefront VP and Head of Digital Amanda Perrucci to discuss how B2B fintechs can optimize their marketing emails to most effectively reach and engage their audience. In the context of this episode, email marketing refers to direct email outreach to clients and prospects regarding company news, product updates, thought leadership, event promotion, etc. It does not include targeted client outreach related to invoicing, system outages, and the like.
To open the discussion, Amanda and Jay highlight the benefits of email marketing for B2B fintechs. Firms in this niche don’t always see the value of sending emails, but Jay emphasizes that a company’s email database can be its single most valuable marketing asset. Through direct, personalized outreach to their contacts, firms can ensure their latest announcement or piece of content is reaching as many people as possible – social channels tend to see a lower engagement rate. Jay emphasizes that an up-to-date email database is crucial when executing sends, so firms should look for as many places as possible on their website to ask visitors for their contact information.
Next, Jay and Amanda discuss how to create impactful emails for B2B fintech. Jay suggests mentioning specific job functions or industries in the subject line: “The sooner you can tell someone who they are, the faster they want to engage with your content,” he says. Often, companies spend significant time on the content, copy and layout of their emails but give little thought to the subject line, which is ultimately what gets recipients through the door. By devoting more time to this area, firms can increase their open rate by as much as 50%.
Jay and Amanda go on to discuss email frequency: how many emails to clients and prospects is too many? Jay states that firms should strive to send relevant, interesting information – and that firms that do so successfully are most likely not sending enough! “Frequency only becomes an issue when you’re boring,” he states. He encourages firms to get creative with their email content and subject lines and take multiple approaches to promote the same item so the content doesn’t feel stale.
Jay also suggests that firms reconsider how they view unsubscribes following an email send. Audience members who are not engaged or interested in what you’re offering are not worthwhile targets anyway. The goal of email marketing is to reach engaged, qualified prospects, so through that lens, unsubscribes can actually be viewed as a positive thing.
Lastly, Jay shares a few practical tips for B2B fintechs looking to improve their email marketing and increase engagement. These include:
- Using the name of the company or individual you’re reaching out to through personalization tokens
- Using brackets in the subject line to emphasize certain phrases
- Experimenting with the “From” field to see what nets the most responses
- Sending follow-up emails to non-openers with a new subject like (e.g., “Missed our latest product update?”)
To learn more about Forefront’s email marketing offerings, explore our Services page or get in touch with our team.
Subscribe to Jay’s podcast, “Do This, NOT That”, on Apple Music or Spotify and check out his website here.
