Interesting study on consumer email marketing. Yes, it’s consumer and not B-to-B, but I think that human behavior will tend to trend similarly regardless of category. In other words, it seems that when consumers opt-in to receive emails, they act on them and appreciate them and we can extrapolate that business targets probably feel similarly.
The big thing to note is that these are opt-in targets. Also, the emails sent offer additional action–coupon, see new products, something. So how to make that work for your business? Give people the option to opt-in to your emails (on your site and any social media you use, and print promos) and when you send email, give them something more than just an old photo and a link to your site. Make it new/fresh work and how about linking to a new “portfolio” of similar work? Or offer a link to an article that will help your targets. Or connect them with your stock images so that they can license directly from you if they want to use your kind of work but don’t have the budget to shoot.
Think about what your targets need–I bet you can come up with other ideas!