Corey Morris, Director of Digital Strategy at ER Marketing, discusses ER Marketing work with Huttig Building Products to use data, personalization, localization, and content relevancy to deliver on target, on time, relevant messaging to sell products from manufacturers to their dealer customer audience. Corey's presentation was given at the 2016 emfluence Marketing Platform Conference in Kansas City on May 19, 2016. http://www.emarketingplatform.com/

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Corey Morris, Director of Digital Strategy, ER Marketing
B2B Email Best Practices &
The Huttig Dealer Digest
cmorris@ermarketing.net
@coreydmorris

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About Corey Morris
• Director of Digital Strategy for ER Marketing
• 11 years in digital marketing agency roles
• Board Member for SEMPO International
(Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization)
• Leader of SEMPO Cities KC
• Professional Advisory Council member for
Northwest Missouri State
• Past co-host of Tech Circuit on KMBZ

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• Integrated marketing and
communications agency based in KC
• Celebrating 15th year as an agency
in 2016
• National client base and focus on B2B
including specialization within building
materials industry
• Enhanced depth of digital focus with
dedicated digital team
• One of most award winning B2B
agencies in region
About ER Marketing

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• Relevancy
• Best Practices
• Resources
• Newsletters
B2B Email Marketing

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B2B Email Relevancy
• At least 100 billion business emails
are sent a day
• The number of business email accounts
is expected to be 4.9 billion by 2017
• 68% of companies rated the channel as
good/excellent (eConsultancy), credited
with bringing in at least 23% of total sales
http://www.choosewhat.com/files/Email-Laptop.JPG

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B2B Email Relevancy
• We’re not selling pizza
• Relationship based selling and
thought leadership via helping,
not selling
• Impulse is often not a good thing
in B2B
• We often actually know the contact

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B2B Email Best Practices
• Find the right segmentation balance
• What they want, when they want it
• Ask permission
• Handle list with care
• Be welcoming
• Stay regular
• Churn happens
• The details matter
• Don’t stay in the silo
• Re-engage

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B2B Email Best Practices
Most importantly, you want to build content trust and authority…

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Who’s doing the work?
Number of people on the team
B2B Email Resources

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Use of Content Calendars
B2B Email Resources
Year Round
Some
Seasons
Nope

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How well tested
are we?
@coreydmorris
B2B Email Resources

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B2B Email Newsletters
We know we need to do more
with the resources we have
and get beyond just the
basic B2B email newsletter,
but how?

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Huttig Building Products Case Study
• The Company
• Situation
• Dealer Digest Email Campaign
• Content Curation
• Deployment
• Results

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About Huttig: The Company
• Publically traded company with 27 locations serving 41 states
• Product line availability differs by location/area
• They don’t actually ”make” anything. The relationship HAS to add
value as the same products are available elsewhere

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About Huttig: The Company
The Industry & Channel
• Supplier
• Wholesale Distributor
• Dealer
• Pro
• Consumer

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Situation: Audience
The Dealer Persona
http://www.economylumberco.com/_image/j-bacon_b-etlin.jpg

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Situation: Content & Communication
• Right content, right time, for the right person
• Streamlining communications from Huttig and suppliers
• In 2015, 326 email messages were sent to Huttig contacts through
emfluence

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Situation: Program
• Part of the Customer Connections program for suppliers to get their
content and promotions further down the channel than they have
direct access to
• Dealer Digest is the email component with communication to the
dealer (independent lumber yard chain) audience

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Dealer Digest: Data Synchronization
• Huttig ERP and emfluence platform two-way contact data sharing
• Replaced manual process of download from CRM, massaging of CSV,
and upload into emfluence

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Dealer Digest: Localization & Personalization
• Product availability based
on location
• Personalized messaging and
content to the location
and region
• Corporate or generic message
won’t resonate–this
audience associates Huttig
relationship with their local branch

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Dealer Digest: Message Content
Nearly All is Variable Content:
• From name is custom field for branch
• Location banner is custom link to branch web page
• GM article and headshot are variable content items
• Featured articles (one of few non-custom aspects)
• Product spotlight variable content based on location
• Supplier feature content based on location relevance
• Special offer is custom based on location availability
• Special offer can be location-specific
• Up to 10 location-specific insert graphics

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Dealer Digest: Content Curation
• Collaboration to create and compile content that is for everyone and
content that is right for certain locations
• Supplier info and input, corporate input, and local branch
representation in the content development and curation process
• This used to be done by hand and still does go out in print form 1-2
times per year as well

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Dealer Digest: Testing & Deployment
• Three people must approve messages before deployment
(combination of Huttig corporate and ERM staff)
• Each approver receives a different location version
• One additional ERM team member receives, tests, and proofs all
location variations

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Results
2015 Dealer Digest vs. Benchmarks
Unique Opens Unique Clicks Click to Open Bounce % UnSub % Complaint %
emfluence B2B 23.84% 5.27% 14.38% 1.18% 0.18% 0.04%
emfluence B2C 21.84% 3.58% 11.68% 0.92% 0.21% 0.03%
IBM All Email 21.00% 3.20% 12.60% 0.55% 0.13% 0.03%
Huttig Dealer Digest 25.00% 4.10% 16.30% 0.96% 0.02% 0.00%

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Wrapping Up
Recommendations
• Don’t settle for your current results
• Don’t settle for benchmarks
and baselines
• Understand and build toward
the consumerization of B2B
• Get personal, really personal
• Take things one step at a time

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Wrapping Up
Closing thoughts
• We didn’t get to the current Dealer Digest overnight
• Weigh out the pros and cons of investment in content and technology and
take the next step (not all the steps)
• Like other digital marketing channels, embrace the fact that this is an ongoing
process to optimize
• Push your partners for the next step and next enhancement
• Don’t underestimate B2B email!

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References:
emfluence email marketing metrics benchmarks 2016
IBM 2015 Email Metrics Benchmark Study
Litmus 2016 State of Email Production
Oracle Marketing Cloud Email Deliverability Guide
Huttig (client information)
ER Marketing (client data stats)
emfluence platform (client data stats)
Salesforce Pardot Email Lookbook
http://www.smartinsights.com/b2b-digital-marketing/b2b-email-marketing/9-b2b-email-marketing-examples/
eConsultancy Email Remains the Best Digital Channel for ROI
http://autosend.io/blog/email-marketing-best-practices-b2b/
Thanks!