L'article
Email marketing has never been so popular in B2B. The emergence of generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) tools makes this marketing lever even more accessible, more effective and more interesting from an ROI point of view… provided you avoid the trap of “full auto” and keep the human element at the helm.
Here’s how it works…
In 2024, marketing departments will continue to rely on emailing.
The death of emailing has been prophesied many times, first with the democratisation of SMS in the late 1990s, the rise of the smartphone in the mid-2000s and, above all, the hegemony of instant messaging, with the launch of WhatsApp in 2009 to great fanfare.
Paradoxically, as the means of instant communication have evolved, emailing has consolidated its place even further in the marketer’s toolbox, and the emergence of the new generation of AI tools should support this trend, as we will develop below.
According to our study of marketing department investments, 73% of French B2B companies plan to invest in an emailing solution in 2024, with a peak of 84% among medium-sized companies. This is more than SEO/SEA (70%), ABM/DemandGen (68%) and even Marketing Automation, including AI (66%).
Why is emailing so popular in B2B?
In B2B marketing, emailing is more than holding its own. Every year, it confirms its place as a performance driver, at least for brands that combine the two key success factors of a qualified database and high-added-value content.
💡Take note
Unlike SEO and social media marketing, which rely on third-party platforms and opaque algorithms, email marketing allows you to control virtually every variable in the campaign. The company has control over its mailing list, its content and when it is sent, and it has access to detailed data on how users interact with each email.
➔ This control allows a degree of predictability in results, and performance is largely dependent on the company’s efforts (rather than variables over which it has no control).
If it continues to make its mark in marketing strategies (acquisition, loyalty and branding), it’s because it ticks almost all the right boxes:
- An exceptional ROI of 312% (in terms of lead generation). In other words, when carried out according to the rules, emailing generates three times more revenue than it costs. AI should further reduce the average cost of a campaign and further improve the average ROI;
- Unlike SMS and instant messaging (including LinkedIn), email allows you to develop reasoning, an elaborate layout and content illustrated by images, links and attachments. In B2B, where offers are often technical and complex, this richness of content is essential;
- Emailing allows very detailed and advanced reporting to find out who clicks on what, how often, etc.;
- Email is perceived as a professional, serious and formal channel, which lends a certain credibility and legitimacy to a company’s communications;
- Emailing is compatible with content snacking. Companies that create blog articles and other content with high added value can use them to run interesting email campaigns, which reduces expenditure and improves ROI;
- Emailing lends itself particularly well to automation, even when it comes to personalisation.
AI should boost the penetration rate of emailing in B2B
As we have seen, technology has not exactly been kind to the email channel, since it has mainly produced competing channels over the last quarter of a century (SMS, instant messaging, social networks, etc.).
But things are changing. Artificial Intelligence, which is likely to be the tech topic of the decade, is this time working in emailing’s favour. Indeed, the democratisation of AI tools should further increase the penetration rate of this lever in B2B for at least two reasons
#1 Generative AI chatbots assist marketers
Generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude can help marketers with the creative part of their campaigns:
- Brainstorm ideas to combat writer’s block;
- Use copywriting to explore headlines, catchphrases and click-throughs;
- Draft content for emails, which will be refined by the human eye;
- Experiment with different copywriting styles and tones;
- Create visuals to illustrate content, even if this aspect is still rudimentary in the AI tools currently available.
#2 Emailing tools are becoming more powerful with AI
Marketing and communication are not a science. They rely on feelings, subjectivity and emotion. The objective of emailing content is rarely 100% informative, but rather draws on persuasion, psychology and sentiment… and it is typically with this type of content that AI has the most difficulty.
Do the test on ChatGPT or Gemini and try to create persuasive and engaging content. The results will probably be generic, vague, superficial and a bit clichéd, even if you go back and forth a lot.
Secondly, as you’ve probably already noticed, generative AI has trouble writing in natural, idiomatic French. The tone is generally cold, impersonal and robotic. If you ask ChatGPT for a more natural and engaging style, you’re likely to get literal translations from English, sometimes with curious expressions and nonsensical phrases.
On the other hand, the AI only “knows” what it has received and digested as information. Your chatbot doesn’t have this informal knowledge of your market, your customers, your prospects, your products, etc. So it will find it hard to bounce ideas off you. As a result, it will have difficulty bouncing off current events and demonstrating rigour when it comes to the legal and ultra-technical aspects of your value proposition.
Finally, if all marketers entrusted the content of their emails to AI, the prospect or customer would be approached with the same pitch every time. Instead, use AI to your advantage, as a co-pilot, entrusting it with the tasks it is capable of carrying out (data analysis, brainstorming, writing assistance) so that you can concentrate on the essentials: expertise, emotion, empathy and persuasion.
Find out more about our emailing solutions.