How can B2B marketers not only survive, but thrive in the digital age where email inboxes have become the battleground for attention?
In this episode, Matt Tracy, known for his unique approach that combines scientific principles and marketing knowledge, shares his perspective on developing a successful B2B email strategy.
Consultant Matt brings his background in ecological science to email marketing. his bestselling book, natural order, We propose that the most successful strategies mimic growth patterns observed in nature.
Matt describes his framework, which is based on the ecological concept of inheritance, as follows:
- Dispersion: Focus on growing your list and making your subscribers look forward to your emails.
- Recruitment: Turn your subscribers into engaged community members.
- Established: Create a sustainable ecosystem where data drives personalized, high-converting strategies.
Email remains an important channel for B2B marketers. By using strategies that reflect the natural order, marketers can enhance their approach to not only attract but also retain customers in a way that feels natural and appealing.
Watch the video for more information and the podcast (link below the video) for the entire insightful conversation.
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Episode details, guest information, and reference links
Episode No.78
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MarketingProfs resources referenced in the show:
“In B2B News” articles referenced in the program:
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Transcript: Effective B2B Email Strategies for Winning (Matt Treacey)
Hello everyone, today's Marketing Smarts Live viewers. We're so excited to bring you another episode of the Marketing Smarts Live show.
This week's topic is about effective B2B email strategies for winning.
So, if you're ready to start learning, buckle up and get ready to rock and roll.
Hello, I'm your boy George B. Thomas. I'm a speaker, trainer, catalyst, and host of this show, the Marketing Smarts Live show, and the Marketing Smarts podcast on your favorite podcast app.
Today's guest clip is brought to you by none other than Matt Tracy.
Matt Treacey is the go-to email marketing consultant for the world's top business authors. He has garnered praise from industry leaders such as Nir Eyal, Perry Marshall, and Michael Bungay Stanier.
Matt combines a proven track record in email marketing with an academic background in ecological science.
His best-selling book, Natural Orders, teaches you how to develop a healthy, engaging, and portable email marketing database by imitating the timeless growth strategies used by nature's most successful systems. Masu.
Engaging and thought-provoking, Matt's writing and speaking inspires audiences to think differently and consider interdisciplinary approaches that can help take your business to the next level.
Now, let's remember that today's clip with Matt Tracy is taken from the entire Marketing Smarts podcast episode. If you want to hear the full interview with Matt Tracy and I, be sure to tune in to the Marketing Smarts podcast and link to the full show. I will write the explanation below after the live performance.
In this episode, we're back with Matt Treacey to talk about effective B2B email strategies for winning.
mat: There are two ways to do this. The main reason is that the leverage is high and it is easy to win. When it comes to converting traffic to subscribers, which I talked about earlier, there's a lot of leverage. If you can solve this, you can grow your list faster.
Second, again, don't send spam emails immediately after registering. Meeting people where they are is also very high leverage. This establishes the foundation of the ecosystem, sets a very strong baseline of engagement, and immediately stops the mass exodus of people. It will establish a strong foundation for the entire ecosystem.
This leads pretty well to what I was going to say next, which is to use this framework that I talked about. I break it down into three stages. In other words, this roughly follows the process by which an ecosystem develops over time, and this is called the “succession stage.” In fact, this is the beginning of the field of ecology. The terminology is actually still debatable, but I've broken it down into dispersion, adoption, and establishment.
What you're really trying to do in the distribution phase is add people to the list and create a good environment that makes them want to stay there. I hope someone is looking forward to your email. Nir Eyal's Hooked model is a very good resource for that. The book How to Build Habit-Forming Products also applies to email marketing. Please look into it. You want to build the foundation of an ecosystem. The metric you're optimizing at this stage is engagement.
From there we move on to a stage called recruitment. It is when an organism joins an ecosystem and becomes a permanent member of that ecosystem. In other words, it's a transformation. How to improve conversions with email marketing goes back to why the ROI is so high, and that's because of the specificity, segmentation, and personalization we talked about earlier. There are specific methods that I talk about in the book, but really you want to find more specific ways to communicate with your audience that will lead to higher conversions.
The final stage of ecosystem flourishing in a rainforest is establishment. There, all the data is accumulated, you have a little walled garden, and you can start doing really interesting things. By following Jay Abraham's advice, you can increase repeat purchases, increase average order value, and increase first-time purchases by increasing traffic to your system. At that point, it becomes fully optimized and self-sustaining. You'll have data to explore who your top subscribers are, and you can target them with specific offers. That's when the magic really happens.
Let's get back to Matt Treacey and his thoughts on effective B2B email strategies for winning. But before that, I have to ask…
Are you part of the MarketingProfs community? If not, visit mprofs.com/mptoday (mprofs.com/mptoday) to become part of the MarketingProfs community.
Now it's time for my favorite section…
B2B News – We talk about breaking B2B news that's relevant to you and your B2B business, as well as the most important tips we found on the Google News tab. This week's title is…
Email marketing is the most influential channel for B2B marketers
So let's get back to Matt Tracy and his Marketing Smarts podcast episode.
mat: If we're talking about the two biggest mistakes people make in email marketing, I'd categorize them into this ecosystem problem. One is called a top-down cascade and the other is called a bottom-up cascade. Either the system collapses or the floor is pulled out from underneath.
The first, top-down cascade, which I touched on a little bit earlier, is when you don't establish a strong foundation from the beginning. If you take a typical email marketing approach and start bombarding people with offers and getting people onto your list, you typically end up with lower engagement and correspondingly higher unsubscribe rates. . What that means is the dynamics of the list, it gets out of control, the snake eats its tail, it starts eating itself, and the list collapses into nothingness.
Compounding this is the fact that your chosen email marketing system's sender score (which is not official, but it does happen) will send you to a junk server. If you keep sending bad emails, your servers will become terrible, your deliverability will only get worse, and it will be very difficult to recover from that. That's a top-down cascade.
Next is the bottom-up cascade, which basically goes back to platform risk. If we fail to actually build this walled garden, our own email ecosystem, then we'll inevitably see policy updates and algorithm changes, but it's irreversible. It will be.
I'll be back with Matt Tracy in a few minutes, but before that, I'd like to take a moment…
Stupid B2B Lessons from the MarketingProfs Article Archive
That's right, it's time to dig into the treasure trove of valuable information and pull out a couple of gold coins to become a better B2B marketer.
This week's article 1 is:
Email optimization: How simple changes can increase open rates, click-throughs, responses, and average order size
This week's article 2 is:
The most important KPIs to track the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy
Want to keep learning more? If so, check out the links in the description below after the live show to access both of MarketingProfs' great articles.
Now, back to Matt Treacey… back to our conversation about effective B2B email strategies for winning
mat: That's a very good question, but it's not one I've ever actually been asked. It's actually a great exercise to visualize what this will look like. Do you know what a successful and healthy email marketing system looks like to me? The first is the dynamics of a good list health that I referenced earlier. Unsubscribe rate is less than 0.35%. The open rate is over 35%. Please note that open rates are becoming increasingly unreliable and are not a good indicator. These are just lagging indicators. We'll go into more detail about this, but the point is: List health dynamics are very powerful.
The second thing, and this is part of the adoption phase that we talked about earlier, is that data about your subscribers is automatically collected. One of the things you want to do is track people's interactions. Which email A, B, or C will you open and what does that mean for them? You want to set up a tagging system to collect data that is actually meaningful to your business and business goals.
This is what a truly successful email marketing system looks like. Once 6 months have passed and all the data has been accumulated, you can move on to the third stage where you can make some very interesting strategic decisions.
We'll be hearing some words of wisdom here in a few minutes from Matt Tracy, but for now it's time to shine a spotlight on you, the MarketingProfs community. Yes, it's time…
#MPB2B From the community
We've searched the world of #MPB2B extensively to find great information and conversations to bring to the masses.
So first, make sure you're using hashtags, and second, make sure you're having fun and adding value to your community.
Then we'll spotlight you or your staff on the show. This week…
LinkedIn Post
However, to see and read the post and learn more, you must review the description and click on the link.
Marketing Smarts viewers, I want to ask you… Are you the next person to turn heads?
Community, use the hashtag #mpb2b on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter to shine a light on your greatness on the next or future episodes of the Marketing Smarts Live show.
Pro tip, it's okay to tag me in your posts. I'm @georgebthomas on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Now, let's jump back to Matt Treacey and some words of wisdom on this topic: Effective B2B Email Strategies for Winning.
Here's what Matt Tracy wanted to leave us with…
mat: I don't pretend to have any wisdom myself, so I'll take the words of someone wiser. Actually, I think I've already mentioned him. “Enter the conversation going on in your prospect's mind.” Robert Collier. I think this is extremely valuable for all types of marketing, B2B and his B2C, especially email. Pay attention to that word.
Did you enjoy today's trip? Whichever platform you're participating in, let us know by using the hashtag #mpb2b.
