Email marketing B2B: 58.3% open rate on a newsletter
Post-trade-fair email marketing with Mailchimp — Drupa 2024
58.3%
Open rate campagna Drupa
+35%
Open rate medio newsletter
7.000+
Contatti nel database
2
Segmenti geografici
This email marketing B2B case study documents the post-trade-fair strategy developed for Peroni Ruggero Srl after Drupa 2024: from database segmentation to email sequences, through to results measured in Mailchimp.
Context
International trade fairs generate a spike in contacts. The problem is that most companies let them go cold within days, without structured follow-up. Drupa 2024 — the world’s leading trade fair for printing and packaging — brought Peroni Ruggero hundreds of qualified contacts from around the world.
The post-fair attention window is short: prospects are still warm, they remember the product, but they are waiting for a signal.
The problem
Convert contacts collected at Drupa 2024 into warm leads with timely, relevant, and visually polished email communication. The database included contacts from different countries, with different interests: some had seen a specific machine, others were looking for general luxury packaging solutions. The challenge was to personalise the communication without losing speed of execution.
The approach
Contact database segmentation by geography and interest type. Email sequence in Mailchimp: post-fair thank-you → product presentation → CTA to website. A/B testing on subject line and header to optimise open rates.
Every email was designed with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, with a layout visually consistent with Peroni Ruggero’s brand identity. The subject line was tested in A/B variants: short vs. descriptive, with and without name personalisation. Send timing was calibrated based on the recipient’s time zone for international contacts.
Materials
The result
- 58.3% open rate on the main campaign, more than double the B2B industry average (20–25%).
- +35% average open rate on newsletter vs. the previous year.
- Measurable increase in product enquiries in the month following the fair.
The Drupa 2024 case proved that a structured email strategy, combined with quality visual content, can turn a trade fair into a measurable lead acquisition channel.
What I learned
Email marketing B2B works when it follows three principles: timeliness (send within 48 hours of the fair), relevance (segment by real interest) and visual quality (the layout communicates professionalism before the text is even read).
The secret behind the 58.3% open rate was not a technical trick, but the combination of correct timing, tested subject lines and credibility built over time with the monthly newsletter. Drupa contacts were already used to receiving quality emails from Peroni Ruggero — the post-fair campaign leveraged this trust.
Segmentation made the difference: Italian contacts received a different sequence from international ones, with specific references to the fair and the products they had seen in person.
The project was managed entirely with Mailchimp, the most widely used email marketing platform in B2B, with design created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
Next project → LinkedIn Growth B2B
Mailchimp · Adobe Illustrator · Adobe Photoshop