Email marketing for promoting a complex b2b product
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 5:25 am
Promoting complex, narrowly focused products is a difficult task, especially in the B2B sector. The relevant audience is limited, the decision-making cycle is long, and it is not always possible to use popular methods from other areas: lead magnets (as in the infobusiness) or promo codes and bonus programs (as in e-com).
Technopark Skolkovo and EMAILMATRIX successfully solve these tasks with an asterisk regularly. With the help of mailings, we attract entrepreneurs-innovators to support programs. Using the example of a specific chain of letters, we will tell you how a brand and an agency built email marketing in a narrow niche.
Task
Technopark Skolkovo helps its residents develop. One of the tasks is to manufacturing email list invite them to participate in acceleration and educational programs, technology competitions, hackathons. The events provide financial support measures, tracking and other opportunities for startups and mature companies.
Accelerators are launched by government agencies and large corporations such as Sber, Gazprom Neft, and Rostelecom. Skolkovo receives orders from program organizers to attract participants and generate leads. The number of applications is usually a key KPI for a company.
In addition to the characteristic features of promotion in B2B, this product has another one. The accelerator requires effort and does not guarantee results: the main incentive for participation for startups is investment, and only the winners of the program can get this opportunity.
The Technopark uses a pool of tools for lead generation and promotion: email distribution, telemarketing, social networks, advertising in industry media and other channels.
As a rule, all tools work in conjunction with others. Here, one in the field is not a warrior: collecting the required number of applications in one way in a limited time is resource-intensive. The process of target action has many iterations and includes many previous touchpoints.
And email marketing is one of the most important tools: on average, a mailing brings in 20-30% of applications. Without it, it would be difficult, especially considering the external factors of 2022: the departure of some channels from the country and changes in the Russian marketing market in general.
Olga Kovtsur
Olga Kovtsur
former head of digital marketing at Skolkovo Technopark
Working with the database
The company's database contains more than half a million addresses. Previously, invitations to accelerators were sent to all subscribers, but then Technopark began to segment the database.
We thought that if subscribers were interested in one kind of innovation, they would be interested in others. However, at some point we noticed that “innovator” was an overly general definition: blockchain enthusiasts would hardly be attracted to, for example, genome sequencing. Bombarding tens of thousands of users with irrelevant emails was a bad idea. And this was confirmed by practice: in 2019–2020, we were losing subscribers.
We got the hint and came up with segmentation by innovation areas: now we have flies separately, foodtech separately. And we reduced mass emails to weekly (and sometimes monthly) digests. Thanks to this, unsubscribes were cut in half, and spam complaints were reduced tenfold.
Ruben Zarbabyan
Ruben Zarbabyan
Senior Analyst at Skolkovo Technopark
In total, the database contains about 50 segments by technology industries. To promote each program, Technopark selects only those that are definitely interested in a specific area. The user's participation in previous events and the topics that he chose when subscribing are taken into account :
example of subscription manager
The letters are developed by a contractor — EMAILMATRIX. We will show how this is done in the email chain for Green Tech StartUp Booster — the first annual acceleration program in Russia for technology startups in the field of ecology.
Mailing tactics
The goal of the mailing is to introduce the audience to the product, to interest them and to convince them to use it. To do this, the agency prepares a long chain: in the one under consideration, there were 12 links.
The first letters simply inform the audience about the program: they describe the conditions of participation, stages, and the results for participants. These mailings are designed for a “warm” audience that is interested in accelerators and does not need persuasion. These messages introduce the rest of the subscribers to the program.
Technopark Skolkovo and EMAILMATRIX successfully solve these tasks with an asterisk regularly. With the help of mailings, we attract entrepreneurs-innovators to support programs. Using the example of a specific chain of letters, we will tell you how a brand and an agency built email marketing in a narrow niche.
Task
Technopark Skolkovo helps its residents develop. One of the tasks is to manufacturing email list invite them to participate in acceleration and educational programs, technology competitions, hackathons. The events provide financial support measures, tracking and other opportunities for startups and mature companies.
Accelerators are launched by government agencies and large corporations such as Sber, Gazprom Neft, and Rostelecom. Skolkovo receives orders from program organizers to attract participants and generate leads. The number of applications is usually a key KPI for a company.
In addition to the characteristic features of promotion in B2B, this product has another one. The accelerator requires effort and does not guarantee results: the main incentive for participation for startups is investment, and only the winners of the program can get this opportunity.
The Technopark uses a pool of tools for lead generation and promotion: email distribution, telemarketing, social networks, advertising in industry media and other channels.
As a rule, all tools work in conjunction with others. Here, one in the field is not a warrior: collecting the required number of applications in one way in a limited time is resource-intensive. The process of target action has many iterations and includes many previous touchpoints.
And email marketing is one of the most important tools: on average, a mailing brings in 20-30% of applications. Without it, it would be difficult, especially considering the external factors of 2022: the departure of some channels from the country and changes in the Russian marketing market in general.
Olga Kovtsur
Olga Kovtsur
former head of digital marketing at Skolkovo Technopark
Working with the database
The company's database contains more than half a million addresses. Previously, invitations to accelerators were sent to all subscribers, but then Technopark began to segment the database.
We thought that if subscribers were interested in one kind of innovation, they would be interested in others. However, at some point we noticed that “innovator” was an overly general definition: blockchain enthusiasts would hardly be attracted to, for example, genome sequencing. Bombarding tens of thousands of users with irrelevant emails was a bad idea. And this was confirmed by practice: in 2019–2020, we were losing subscribers.
We got the hint and came up with segmentation by innovation areas: now we have flies separately, foodtech separately. And we reduced mass emails to weekly (and sometimes monthly) digests. Thanks to this, unsubscribes were cut in half, and spam complaints were reduced tenfold.
Ruben Zarbabyan
Ruben Zarbabyan
Senior Analyst at Skolkovo Technopark
In total, the database contains about 50 segments by technology industries. To promote each program, Technopark selects only those that are definitely interested in a specific area. The user's participation in previous events and the topics that he chose when subscribing are taken into account :
example of subscription manager
The letters are developed by a contractor — EMAILMATRIX. We will show how this is done in the email chain for Green Tech StartUp Booster — the first annual acceleration program in Russia for technology startups in the field of ecology.
Mailing tactics
The goal of the mailing is to introduce the audience to the product, to interest them and to convince them to use it. To do this, the agency prepares a long chain: in the one under consideration, there were 12 links.
The first letters simply inform the audience about the program: they describe the conditions of participation, stages, and the results for participants. These mailings are designed for a “warm” audience that is interested in accelerators and does not need persuasion. These messages introduce the rest of the subscribers to the program.