Complete guide to enterprise email marketing [Strategies + best tools]

Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy — more effective than any other marketing channel. Its ROI is 3,800% or $38 for every dollar you invest. Some 18% of businesses even see a higher ROI of more than $70 for every dollar they invest.

That said, email marketing for an enterprise is quite different from a smaller business. The database, email volume, integration, and features will completely differ from those of small businesses. 

So, if you’re looking for the best email marketing strategies and tools for your large enterprise but don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll cover everything you need to know about email marketing for enterprises. 

Let’s start with what email marketing for large businesses is and how it differs from small business email marketing.

What is enterprise email marketing?

Enterprise email marketing is a marketing strategy that uses email as a channel to grow the audience of large businesses and promote their services and products.

In this article, we’ll use Gartner’s findings to classify midsize and large enterprises. Midsize enterprises employ between 100 and 999 employees. Large enterprises have over 1,000 employees, usually on a global scale.

What’s the difference between email marketing for large enterprises and small businesses?

Email marketing for large enterprises differs significantly from those geared toward small businesses. The difference between the two comes down to usage and scope.

Email marketing platforms for small businesses often have less robust capabilities. They lack advanced features, such as built-in reports and lead scoring. They may also limit the number of subscribers or users.

Email marketing tools for large businesses offer a complete experience, from advanced reporting to customer relationship management (CRM) integrations and data export. Such features come at a price often out of reach for small businesses.

What are the benefits of email marketing for enterprises? 

According to HubSpot, email (35%) was the third top marketing channel in 2022 — just behind social media (44%) and websites (36%). However, it remains the most effective channel for marketing. In fact, 79% of marketers rank it as one of their top three channels for effectiveness.

Part of the reason email is so effective is that you own your email list and can communicate with customers regardless of the email service provider. You also own the content you create and send.

With channels like social media, you don’t own the content you post or your followers — the platform does. You’d lose all your followers and content if something happened to the platform. That’s why developing a solid email automation strategy is crucial for enterprise businesses.

Here are other top benefits of email marketing automation to show why it’s the most effective marketing channel:

• Since customers opt in to receive your emails, they’re an excellent avenue to promote your brand and products, boosting your sales and ROI.
• You can cultivate loyal customers by offering them value even when they aren’t purchasing.
• You can use email marketing campaigns to qualify leads. That way, your sales team doesn’t waste time on bad leads.
• You can use email to drive customers to other marketing channels, like social media.

If you want to take your marketing strategy beyond email, check out these 17 omnichannel marketing tools to elevate your efforts!

Email marketing strategies for enterprises

• Segment your audience and personalize your emails.
• Update your automated campaigns based on email engagement.
• Nurture your leads based on their behavior.
• Consider send-time optimization algorithms, such as Time Travel and Perfect Timing.
• Monitor how often you send emails.

Let’s now look at 5 effective enterprise email marketing strategies.

1. Segment your audience and personalize your emails

Based on our internal research, personalized emails outperform generic messages by 25%. The click-through rate (CTR) of emails with personalized bodies is 3.18%, while that of generic emails is 2.4%.

Ask for relevant information on your landing pages to segment your customers properly. That way, you can place prospects in an ideal buyer persona segment. This lets you send them personalized emails with relevant content for their specific needs. 

2. Update your automated campaigns based on email engagement

Apple announced its New Privacy Policy in 2021, which allows users to choose whether marketers can track their email behavior. This would disrupt tracking IP addresses (which provide valuable geographic data) and open rates on iOS devices and Apple Mail.

If Google were to come up with something like that to address privacy and tracking, open rates would become useless since Apple and Google account for almost all phone operating systems.

Therefore, consider updating your segmentations or automated campaigns based on other email engagement metrics, like CTRs. 

For example, you can send an email announcing an upcoming sale and categorize contacts who click on the email link as “interested.” You can then design a special campaign to further target these customers as potential buyers from the sale.

3. Nurture your leads based on their behavior

Customers are more likely to read and respond to an email they receive immediately after taking action. That’s why automated emails triggered by the recipient’s behavior have higher engagement rates. 

For example, the open rate for triggered emails is 35.64%, while the CTR is 5.31%. In contrast, the email open rate for autoresponders is 29.95%, and the CTR is 3.77%.

Use a marketing automation tool to track your leads’ actions in the sales funnel. Divide them into segments based on their interest, behavior, or demographics. Then, send each group personalized content. 

For instance, you can tag subscribers based on the products they purchase. Then, you can send them relevant emails whenever you update your product catalog. The more actionable data you can collect, the more relevant your emails will be.

4. Consider send-time optimization algorithms, such as Time Travel and Perfect Timing

Time Travel allows you to specify the time to send your email campaign. An email and marketing automation tool like GetResponse MAX will then adjust the timing of your campaign automatically based on your subscriber’s local time zone. 

Perfect Timing will use past behavior data to adjust your campaign’s timing.

According to our most recent data, Time Travel has generated higher click-through (3.62% vs. 2.51%) and open (22.48% vs. 20.58%) rates than you’d typically see with newsletters.

Time Travel works best if you know your subscribers well and your email marketing campaigns are best sent at a specific time. Perfect Timing works best with campaigns that aren’t time-sensitive. So, choose the best send-time optimization strategy based on the nature of your campaigns.

5. Monitor how often you send emails

Email subscribers rarely mind frequent communication. In fact, you’ll see above-average open and CTRs even when you send up to 8 newsletters weekly.

However, one reason customers unsubscribe from newsletters is they’re getting too many emails.

So, what should you do?

Consider sending fewer emails if your audience cites frequency as a reason for unsubscribing. On top of that, invest in a platform that offers high email deliverability. It also guarantees robust AI-based compliance policies, zero tolerance for SPAM, and delivery tracking to enforce best practices.

Also, be transparent about how many emails you’ll send on your subscription form. That way, everyone knows the frequency and type of content they’re signing up for upfront. This could weed out people who may quickly unsubscribe.

What features should you look for in an email marketing solution for large businesses?

Many things can determine the right platform for your large organization. Price is one factor.

However, price shouldn’t be your only consideration. The best email marketing platforms have most or all of the features below.

1. Advanced automation tools and segmentation

An email marketing service should give you the tools to create automation workflows that engage your audience with personalized offers and dynamic content.

You should also be able to design workflows using lead scoring and advanced segmentation based on customers’ data.

The platform should offer other advanced features, including a visual workflow builder, web events tracking, and SMS automation.

2. Expert customer support and efficient onboarding process

The best email marketing tools offer expert priority support and professional services through various channels, including email, phone, live chat, and Slack. The customer service team should always be ready to help you optimize your email marketing campaigns for maximum performance.

The onboarding team should work as an extension of your business and oversee the implementation of your marketing processes, such as data synchronization methods and marketing automation workflows.

3. Integration with other business tools

An effective email marketing tool should easily integrate with other platforms. That way, you can manage your sales and marketing in one place.

For example, you can integrate your GetResponse MAX account with apps your teams may already use, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Shopify, and Google Analytics.

4. Maximum data protection

The platform should safely store your personal and customer data and comply with all international laws. 

The security measures should include:

• PCI-compliant network
• Multiple servers and firewalls
• Daily backups

5 best enterprise email marketing platforms

Now, let’s look at the 5 best email marketing tools for enterprises. We’ll go over some of their key features that can help you scale your business.

Check the full list of the best ecommerce marketing automation platforms for ecommerce

1. GetResponse MAX

GetResponse MAX is a powerful email and marketing automation platform with customized plans.

It offers features such as lead acquisition, ROI tracking, advanced segmentation, tagging, and scoring tailored to your business needs. These tools can help you improve your CTRs and campaign results across your customer journey. 

For example, if you run an ecommerce store, the integrated GetResponse MAX tools can help you discover new opportunities for cross-selling, upselling, niche selling, repeat sales, and add-on sales.

GetResponse MAX also offers a dedicated Customer Experience Manager. The manager helps you with the day-to-day aspects of account management, such as automation workflows, A/B testing, and setting up your subscriber list. 

The onboarding team also manages the implementation process with one-on-one training sessions and review calls. The onboarding process will help you maximize your new account’s potential. 

The enterprise email platform offers 100+ ready-to-use integrations with tools your team may already be using. If you also want a tailor-made solution, our in-house dev team can help with a custom software development project that suits your business’s needs.

GetResponse MAX offers flexible terms and payments, too.

Key features:

• Dedicated onboarding and support
• Web event tracking and ecommerce tools
• 99% email deliverability rates
• SMS marketing and web push notifications
• Tagging and scoring to enable you to monitor your customers’ engagement
• List building features, including landing pages, webinars, and forms
• AI Product Recommendations for ecommerce marketers
• Dedicated Customer Experience Manager to help you with the day-to-day operations of your account
• Flexible terms and payment options

Best enterprise email automation tool for: Medium to large enterprise-level companies with robust marketing teams.

Pricing: Custom pricing.

2. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing automation software with a sales CRM for medium-sized enterprises looking to grow. 

The sales CRM automates contact management, lead scoring, tracking tasks, and monitoring deals and pipelines. It will keep your sales process running smoothly.

The Enterprise plan gives you the control and flexibility to create a customized service. For example, you can use your own server domain and email headers. You also can edit the CSS to match your website’s look and feel.

The email marketing platform has many pre-built integrations for popular apps. They include CRMs, project management tools, payment processing, and accounting solutions.

Key features:

• Advanced segmentation to target your audience based on their behavior
• Tracking functionality to track your subscribers’ activity
• Built-in CRM dashboard to simplify the sales process
• User-friendly drag-and-drop email design editor to create beautiful designs

Best email marketing solution for: Medium-sized enterprises that want email marketing powered by a sales CRM.

Pricing: Custom pricing. 

3. Klaviyo One

Klaviyo One is a complete customer data platform (CDP) that consolidates customer data from various sources. As a result, it helps businesses gain a more holistic view of their clients and design personalized and targeted email marketing campaigns.

The email platform offers many integrations and the ability to connect with custom platforms. Your team can easily make these custom integrations with the help of detailed documentation, a helpful community forum, and flexible application programming interfaces (APIs).

Klaviyo One also has a team of experts who guide you through deliverability, integration, and onboarding to help you manage your account and deliver personalized customer experiences.

Key features:

• Critical real-time insights generated through data analysis and machine learning
• Predictive analysis
• A/B testing
• Advanced segmentation and email automation
• Experts to help you deliver personalized experiences and boost conversions

Best email marketing platform for: Large businesses that want to unify their customer data and create personalized experiences.

Pricing: Custom pricing.

4. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Brevo (formerly known as Sendinblue) is ideal for businesses that need cloud-based marketing automation tools.

The email platform’s SendInTime algorithm analyzes anonymous customer behaviors from previous email campaigns. This machine learning model automatically predicts the best send time for each customer in 24 hours. 

As a result, it increases your likelihood of customer engagement, which eventually boosts your ROI.

Sendinblue also offers advanced contact list segmentation based on conditions like declared interests, previous engagement, or purchase history. This helps you tailor your email content more effectively.

Key features:

• Marketing automation with multichannel workflows
• Advanced segmentation
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• In-app CRM for contact management
• Transactional emails and SMS
• Drag-and-drop editor with email templates to create powerful subject lines and emails

Best email marketing solution for: Growing companies that need cloud-based marketing automation tools.

Pricing: Custom pricing.

5. Pardot (by Salesforce)

Pardot is a marketing automation platform by Salesforce that provides email automation, lead management, ROI reporting, and data analytics for B2B companies.

The enterprise email marketing software helps you create more personalized customer interactions. 

For instance, you can change the content you show leads based on their previous engagement. You also can segment the rest of your contacts automatically. 

In addition, Pardot has spam filters to improve your email deliverability.

Key features:

• Dynamic email content and personalization
• CRM integration with automated lead nurturing
• Segmentation
• A/B testing
• Spam filters to improve email deliverability and content quality

Best email marketing tool for: Established sales-driven brands with large marketing budgets

Pricing: Premium plans start at $1,250/month (when billed annually).

Final thoughts: Enterprise email marketing (strategies + best tools in 2024)

Developing an effective email marketing strategy for your enterprise will help you reap the benefits of this effective digital marketing channel.

To get the most out of this channel, you need the right software to help you automate your processes and grow your business. But with so many email marketing platforms, we can understand if you feel overwhelmed. 

Look for a solution that meets the specific needs of your business, whether it’s customer retention, lead nurturing, or automation. Compare the different tools to find the one that can help you reach your marketing goals.

Choose GetResponse MAX if you want to unlock the full power of marketing automation for your enterprise for a reasonable custom price.