Successfully Running a B2B Emailing Campaign: 5 Steps for Effective Prospecting

Need to promote a new product or service? Thank loyal subscribers? Ask a customer for feedback after a purchase? Today, you no longer have the time to manually send an email every time you need to contact a prospect or customer. Your communication must be delivered quickly and relevantly—without sounding overly robotic.So how do you personalize your messages without spending hours on them? Reach the right targets with successful marketing campaigns in 5 key steps. Here’s everything you need to know about B2B emailing.

The article summary

Emailing is a marketing strategy that consists of automatically sending emails adapted to the behavior of your target audience, with goals such as prospecting, selling, informing, or nurturing. Contact segmentation enables you to efficiently send a large volume of personalized messages.

• Email is the second most-used communication channel worldwide, both in B2B and B2C.
• Emailing is one of the marketing methods with the highest return on investment, especially when integrated into a multichannel sequence.
• The content, frequency, and recipients of an email campaign depend on the objective: newsletter, cold outreach, transactional email, follow-up…
• The results of an email campaign must be measured and analyzed using key KPIs (open rate, click rate…) in order to optimize communication.

Why emailing remains an essential lever in B2B

In 2025, more than 4 billion people worldwide use email to communicate (Statista). At work and at home, whether in personal or professional inboxes, we expect to receive urgent requests, official information, confidential documents, promotions, updates, or information every day. Ignoring your inbox for too long means missing important messages!This is where emailing becomes essential for businesses.

What is emailing?

An essential marketing tool, emailing consists of sending emails to a specific segment of recipients (customers, prospects, donors, subscribers, suppliers…) automatically, often through a dedicated B2B prospecting software. This strategy is effective for lead acquisition, converting prospects into customers, and fostering long-term audience loyalty.The principle of emailing can be summed up in one sentence: deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. Examples:

• Thanking a customer who just purchased a product from your online store.
• Highlighting an offer for two people for Valentine’s Day.
• Following up with a prospect who has been inactive for over a month.

A still-profitable channel: key figures

For B2B and B2C marketers alike, email remains the most-used distribution channel after social media, and before company blogs. Key benefits of emailing (Statista 2025):

• 347 billion emails sent every day worldwide.
• 88% of users check their inbox every day.
• 77% of B2B buyers prefer email as a communication channel.
• On average, email marketing generates €21 ROI for every €1 spent.

B2B vs B2C emailing: what are the main differences?

Although automated, an effective emailing strategy must adapt to its audience. You don’t run the same types of campaigns for businesses as you do for consumers:

• In B2B: the goal is to build trust, strengthen brand reputation, highlight solutions, and nurture relationships long-term—because companies take time before buying or signing a contract.
• In B2C: the objective is to shorten the sales funnel with rapid actions, such as promotional campaigns.

Combining email and LinkedIn: when and why?

Email prospecting alone—or LinkedIn alone—is not always enough, which is why it is often necessary to multiply touchpoints (email, social media, phone, online ads…). This is explained by the “mere exposure effect”, a powerful cognitive bias: the more we are exposed to a brand or product, the more positive we feel about it.As a result, launching a multichannel sequence increases your chances of receiving a response and building a relationship.

What are the different types of email campaigns?

When it comes to promoting, selling, prospecting, nurturing, or recruiting, few tools are as effective as a well-targeted email: the right message, delivered to the right person, at the right time. But what kinds of emails can you send? It depends on the message, the audience, and the campaign objective.

Cold outreach emails

This type of one-off emailing targets prospects based on their profile or behavior. The goal is to initiate contact, introduce your offer, and inspire interest. The email can include a sign-up form or a special offer.

Automated nurturing campaigns

Lead nurturing means building a relationship of trust with a potential customer to support them throughout their buying journey. This type of emailing is very common in B2B, where sales cycles are long.

Informational newsletters

Sent regularly to all contacts who follow your company’s activity, newsletters maintain engagement and generate traffic. They often redirect readers to blog articles, product pages, or social media posts.

Transactional emails

After creating an account, making a purchase, or shipping a product, customers expect written confirmation. Transactional emails deliver essential information about orders and payments.

Smart follow-ups

Automated follow-up emails can be sent to customers after a period of inactivity to re-engage or invite them to purchase again.Looking for intuitive tools? Check out our review of Snov.io for automated campaigns and our review of Mailshake for email outreach.

Step 1 – Build a qualified contact list

This is the starting point of any email marketing campaign. Build your list of prospects, customers, partners… beginning with collecting their email addresses. Be sure to comply with GDPR. This is known as “opt-in”: the prospect voluntarily gives their email address and agrees to receive promotional emails.To do this, you need a sign-up form or a landing page where prospects can leave their information. These contacts are considered qualified because the action shows genuine interest in your company. Be sure to verify email addresses before launching your campaigns.Choose a prospecting software such as Leadin to automate email sending and import leads directly into your CRM!Good to know: It is legal to prospect professionals without prior consent. Only sending promotional emails to private individuals without consent is prohibited under GDPR.

Step 2 – Write emails people actually want to click

Once your contact list is ready, work on your email content. And before even thinking about the body of the message, choosing a strong subject line is crucial. According to some studies, it influences the open rate by up to 50% (Oberlo), which averages around 36%, with a typical reading time of about 10 seconds.The subject line is the first thing recipients see in their inbox preview. A well-written and appealing subject encourages them to open the email.Here are 3 tips for writing an effective subject line:

• Keep it short (60–70 characters).
• Make it explicit, relevant, and honest.
• Use numbers, superlatives, emojis, or urgency to prompt clicks.

Examples of subject lines:

• 57 pre-written email templates for cold email outreach
• 3 lessons from 8 years of daily LinkedIn prospecting (must-read before tonight)
• Is it still possible to use pods on LinkedIn?

Step 3 – Send your emails at the right time

In email marketing, timing also matters. According to a study by Customer.io, it is generally best to avoid Mondays. After the weekend, inboxes are full, and recipients tend to open only what is essential. Your email risks being ignored. The same applies to Fridays—people are ready for the weekend and less attentive.Tuesdays and Thursdays have the highest open rates. In order: Tuesday is best, followed by Thursday, then Wednesday. The study also shows that the best click rates occur when emails are sent in the afternoon.Our advice: Trigger scenarios based on lead behavior. Tuesday afternoon may not be the best time for your specific audience, so it’s essential to study habits by segment.

Step 4 – Encourage action: clear and well-placed CTAs

Also known as a CTA, the call-to-action is a button encouraging the reader to take a specific action. Opening the email isn’t enough—you need the CTA to guide the recipient:

• Sign up for an event
• Complete a satisfaction survey
• Purchase a promotional product
• Watch your tutorial on YouTube

For example, when people discover the presentation page of our email outreach tool, we include a CTA to book a demo. This is measured by the click-through rate, one of the key indicators of email campaign performance.Encourage action with an irresistible button: give it space in the content, frame it if necessary, choose a contrasting color, and clearly state what recipients should do using a verb: “Download now”, “Discover our solution”, “Claim the offer!”

Step 5 – Measure, analyze, and adjust your emailing strategy

It is nearly impossible to create the perfect email on the first try. The best results come from experimentation and optimization. Only relevant marketing KPIs will help you analyze your results and improve future campaigns.Here are the main KPIs to monitor:

• Deliverability rate: the number of emails that actually reached inboxes compared to the total sent.
• Open rate: the percentage of emails opened by recipients—measures subject line attractiveness and contact qualification.
• Click rate: the percentage of emails that received a click—measures CTA effectiveness.
• Reactivity rate: clicks relative to opens—indicates message relevance.
• Unsubscribe rate: the number of unsubscribes compared to delivered emails.

Use a dedicated marketing tool like Leadin to measure and analyze your emailing performance! Our intelligent platform generates dashboards and calculates your campaign ROI. To go further, check out our email scraping tools to enrich your contact lists.

Successful prospecting emails

B2B prospecting emails often represent the very first contact a prospect has with your brand. To make a strong first impression and make them want to learn more about you, follow these best practices.

Create responsive designs

Emails are now read on every digital device: computers, tablets, smartphones… Your chosen template must adapt to all these formats through responsive design. Pay close attention to layout—especially on mobile!

Choose an email editor that is simple and fast to use. Focus on writing the content, adding text, CTAs, and images. The editor will automatically ensure your email remains readable across all devices by adjusting image sizes, text margins, and more.

Avoid spam filters

According to Debounce, 28% of unsubscribes are linked to emails ending up in spam. To prevent inboxes from becoming trash bins, spam filters hunt down intrusive, repetitive, or suspicious emails. To stay under the radar, follow these tips:

• Do not send emails too frequently.
• Monitor your open rates — low engagement increases spam risk.
• Avoid spam-trigger words like “Free”, “Earn money fast”, or “Exclusive”.
• Do not insert too many images.
• Avoid excessive capitalization.
• Do not attach large files.
• Test your emails using anti-spam tools.

Run regular A/B tests

No serious marketing strategy exists without A/B testing. Send two variations of an email to your contacts to see which performs best. Ideally, change only one element between the two versions (image, CTA button, subject line…). Take time to evaluate your KPIs—open rates, click rates, etc.—to optimize future campaigns and generate better results.

For more inspiration, explore our examples of effective prospecting emails.

Maximize personalization

You’ve heard it a thousand times: the more personalized your emails are, the higher the open rates. This applies in both B2C and B2B. According to a study by Aberdeen Research, personalization increases click-through rates in B2B prospecting emails by 14%.

There are multiple ways to personalize your emails:

• Include personal information such as title, job role, company name…
• Sign your email.
• Add custom images or GIFs.

Capture attention with personalized prospecting. Here’s an example of a customizable image you can create with Leadin:

Follow up with your contact list

Few prospects convert after the first email. This is why you should not hesitate to follow up after some time. A Woodpecker study shows that a follow-up email in B2B outreach increases the response rate from 9% to 13%. However, results depend on targeting quality and industry.

There are two types of follow-up emails:

• Reminder: a new attempt to get responses from those who didn’t react to your first email.
• Additional value: content designed to offer value, position yourself as an expert, and present solutions.

Try our automated sequences for your business — they’re free to explore!

Emailing: key takeaways

A strong emailing strategy is built over time—especially in B2B, where trust and long-term relationships matter greatly. To launch relevant, optimized marketing campaigns, follow these recommendations:

• Build your email list.
• Write attractive, responsive emails.
• Personalize content based on audience segments.
• Send emails at the right time.
• Include strong CTAs in the content.
• Analyze results to improve your strategy.

Need guidance on email prospecting—and more? Try the Leadin demo and boost your performance!

FAQ – Everything you need to know about B2B emailing

What mistakes should be avoided in B2B emailing?

To run a successful email campaign, avoid these mistakes:

• Not segmenting your contacts.
• Not verifying email addresses.
• Writing overly impersonal messages.
• Sending emails at the wrong time.
• Choosing the wrong communication channels.
• Failing to track and analyze campaign results.

What is the best time to send an email campaign?

Generally, emails are opened more often in the afternoon, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, do not rely solely on averages—your audience may behave differently. Analyze your contacts’ habits before deciding on the optimal schedule.

What open rate should you aim for in B2B prospecting?

In B2B, a good open rate is typically between 20% and 25%. For transactional emails (purchase confirmation, invoice sent), open rates can reach up to 80%. Performance depends on campaign type, sending frequency, and audience profile.

What is the difference between a newsletter and a prospecting campaign?

A prospecting campaign aims to acquire new leads, while a newsletter—sent regularly—serves to maintain relationships and share updates about the company.

Email or LinkedIn: do you have to choose?

Fortunately, no! It is actually recommended to use both channels—and even SMS, Facebook, Instagram—to achieve better results. Implement a multichannel sequence for your campaigns using an emailing solution tailored for B2B.