When you think email, do you think email blasts?

You know – a humongous email broadcast – the digital equivalent of a large mail drop.

Otherwise known as Batch & Blast email, B2B marketers have viewed this type of email as best for retention marketing, rather than acquiring customers.

In the early days of email marketing, two powerful types of email were unavailable to B2B marketers:

But all that is changing as…

1) Multi-Function Email Suites dominate B2B email marketing.
2) Retention email marketing takes a back seat to acquisition marketing.
3) Marketing automation vendors are extending their applications.
4) The marketing automation and email vendors consolidate.

Multi-Function Email Suites dominate B2B email marketing
Although no one (except me, ahem) labels these applications ‘multi-function email suites’, I am using the term to describe multi-faceted marketing applications that include the functionality of the three types of email marketing that I have noted above: Batch & Blast, 1to1 Sales emails and Trigger emails. Of course, the functionality of these applications goes well beyond email marketing to include content management, web analytics, CRM integration etc.

When we surveyed 249 B2B marketers last year, we were surprised to find that marketing automation suites (or multi-function email suites) dominated the rankings of email applications.

Upshot: if you are not yet using or at least looking at these multi-function suites, you may be lagging the market.

Retention email marketing takes a back seat to acquisition marketing
With the widespread use of email filters and the need for recipients to opt-in to email communications, retention marketing has been the primary goal for email marketing.

1to1 Sales email and Trigger emails provide a level of personalization, immediacy and relevance that Batch & Blast emails cannot deliver allowing B2B marketers to target prospects, rather than just customers, with compelling emails.

The broad market acceptance of lead management and sales enablement applications is paving the way for the widespread use of 1to1 Sales emails and Trigger emails for lead generation, lead nurture and conversion.

Upshot: Marketers and sales reps now have robust email marketing tools available for lead generation.

Marketing automation vendors are extending their applications
As vendors push to increase their scale, the competition is intensifying.

Recently, Genius launched a lead management application to complement their leading sales enablement solution. While Eloqua and Marketo have launched a broadside to Genius by moving into the sales enablement space from lead management.

For a terrific overview of this standoff, read Laura Ramos’ recent post on her blog. Laura is VP / Principal Analyst, Forrester Research.

Upshot: enhanced competition should provide more attractive options for buyers to buy full application suites.

The marketing automation and email vendors will consolidate
I asked Jon Miller, VP of Marketing, Marketo about how buyers will look at evaluating marketing applications:

Q: Will B2B sales or marketing teams stop buying one-dimensional email applications? i.e. Batch & Blast applications only

A: I definitely think this is true; people don’t have time or energy to cobble together piece part solutions.

As marketing automation vendors scramble to extend their applications into other types of email marketing, two analysts see the market consolidating.

In a webinar earlier this year, Alexander Drobik, Managing VP Gartner Research simply states:

In the current era of economic uncertainty and increasing IT productivity, users will congregate their IT software spend in megavendors and their ecosystems.

(For free access to the Gartner webinar slides, click here.)

David Raab, a consultant specializing in marketing technology and analysis, noted in a well-written review of Marketo Sales Insight, that the revenue opportunity on sales enablement tools will be very attractive to sales automation vendors (i.e. CRM vendors) and those vendors will ‘take the business for themselves’.

Upshot: B2B marketers may find standalone, Batch & Blast vendors to be a dying breed as robust sales & marketing automation suites dominate the market. Our research shows that of the Batch & Blast vendors, it was mostly the budget-friendly vendors, who held significant market share.

(Image copyright – Fox Media. The resemblance to the author is purely accidental.)