A B2B marketing funnel takes your customers on a journey from initial sign-up to long-term buyer.
But while a funnel is a great way to generate leads and boost sales, they typically only work if you:
- Define your customer personas
- Create a strong email flow
In this article, we’ll focus on the latter. Predominantly, we’ll show you how to select and source images for your B2B marketing funnel emails.
Why Images are Important for B2B Marketing
Images offer you the chance to break up your emails, catch your reader’s eye and improve conversions. They’re a crucial part of knowing how to sell online.
However, images tell stories and can increase engagement by showcasing your brand’s value. You can use images in your B2B marketing funnel to:
- Introduce people to your brand
- Promote your company’s values and culture
- Make a human connection with your clients
This can mean selecting images of your team that puts a human face to your business.
But you should also think outside the box and leverage tools that help you create awesome images.
How to Source Images for Your B2B Marketing Funnel
A B2C marketer generally has an easier time of it when it comes to selecting images for their emails. After all, they can typically choose images of their products (this is especially true for ecommerce brands).
A B2B marketer, on the other hand, has a tougher time of things.
Fortunately, you can use tools to help, such as JumpStory. JumpStory arms you with authentic images that are designed to engage your audience and stop you from resorting to the same-old stock photos that your customers are tired of seeing.
You can also take photos yourself (such as of your team), but if you go down this route it’s always recommended that you work alongside a professional photographer. And if you’re concerned about the budget, make sure to explore options for startup loans.
Types of Emails to Send Your Customers (and what images to include)
An email flow refers to the different types of emails you need to send to your customers at different stages of the funnel.
Before you do that, however, as a B2B marketer it’s important that you segment your customers first. This means using data to create customer segments that allow you to target different customers at different stages in the funnel with emails that are tailored to their specific needs.
It all starts with…
The Welcome Email
Your welcome email is your first impression of customers who have just signed up for your newsletter. As such, you don’t need to go over the top, but you do need to strike the right chord so that your relationship gets off to the best start possible.
With a welcome email, you need to:
- Introduce your company
- Thank your customers for subscribing
- Outline what kind of emails they can expect
A welcome email needs to be sent to all your customer segments.
In terms of images, you can go with something cute—like a dog GIF that’s captioned “hello!” or you can go with a photo of your team at work.
Follow up Email
Let’s say you establish contact with a potential client but they don’t respond to your email.
That’s fine. But if they’re in the consideration stage, it’s important that you follow up with an email that grabs their attention.
A good subject line, body copy, and CTA all matter. But equally important is including an image that’s on point.
At this stage, it’s a smart idea to use an image of your current happy customers and their testimonials. This will reinforce your brand’s identity.
If you’re reaching out to someone with the aim of arranging a call, you might even want to include a screenshot of a past video meeting your team has held.
Emails Based on Purchase History
When you pay careful attention to customer purchase history, you can then target different businesses with the right emails.
For example, there’ll be customers who haven’t purchased from you yet, customers who have purchased just once, as well as those who have purchased several times.
When you understand purchase history, you can exploit upselling and cross-selling opportunities in your emails.
The exact email you send here will depend on your customer segment. But ideally, you want to include an image of your product or service—especially if you’re targeting customers who have already purchased from you, and who you can target with upselling and cross-selling ideas.
Re-Engagement Emails
Re-engagement emails need to be aimed at customers who have either stopped opening your emails or who have ceased clicking through.
A great way to get them back in the game is via value—and eye-catching images.
Your tone for this type of email should be friendly and personable. But there are still different ways you can approach it. You can either introduce a new product or service, in which case an image of the product or service is applicable. Or you could tell your customers that your team misses them, explain what value you’ve got for them, and include an image of your team.
Alternatively, you could use humorous and/or cute animated images that drive home the point that you miss them and wish to reconnect with them.
Conclusion
Your customers go through different stages of your B2B marketing funnel, from the awareness stage to purchase. There’s an image for every part of the journey, but it’s equally important that you capture your customers’ attention with eye-catching subject lines, meaningful body copy, as well as a strong CTA.
And provided you segment your email list so that you send the right emails out to the right people, as well as choose high-quality images that hit the spot, you can improve your click-through rates and your conversions.
