Email is still the top marketing channel when it comes to new business prospecting.
The annual whitepaper, now in its second year, revealed that 59% of marketers believe that email is over twice as effective at generating leads than channels such as PPC and paid social media, despite some marketers focussing spend in those channels.
When it comes to new business, most decision makers want a one-to-one approach, with referrals (42%) and webinars or face-to-face events (24%) coming in second and third place after personalised email, to cultivate business leads.
The whitepaper also reveals that 77% of B2B buyers prefer to be contacted over email – more than double any other channel. Customers also state that they want content of the email campaign to be engaging and share information and knowledge.
The whitepaper, one of the most comprehensive b2b prospecting reports ever published,also provides guidance to ensure email campaigns are successful, providing pointers on how to build your audience and database, personalisation tips, and useful information on forming prospecting campaigns.
According to a report from Ascend2, email marketing is still the most effective lead generation channel. To seasoned marketers, this is no surprise. Email marketing is one of the only lead generation channels that has remained effective for over two decades.
The latest trend in email marketing that your business should be utilizing is marketing automation. Marketing automation tools work by connecting with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database and allowing you to send automated, highly-targeted and personalized emails to leads.
This can include personalization in the form of adding the customer’s name to the subject line, incorporating an element or phrase they have recently searched for online in the email copy, or mentioning their current business name.
Marketing automation can also capture more data on customers in your database and use behavioral triggers to help you successfully market to them through email.
Businesses that haven’t invested in marketing automation tools to enhance their email marketing strategies for lead generation risk losing customers to competitors that have.
When it comes to lead sources, email marketing still has a huge following. And for good reason: with email marketing, there is scale. There is no limit to the amount of people you can reach as long as you have enough content to go around. Even if you’re relatively unknown, you can build up a following by consistently publishing.
