Smarter Email Marketing: Reboot Your B2B Lead Generation and Grow Your Business

The death of email marketing has been greatly exaggerated.

I’m sure you’ve heard the discussions about the impending decline of email and the rise of social media. But independent marketing studies suggest that is not the case. Let’s see what the data tells us.

· ExactTarget Survey 2012 – 66% prefer email as the number one marketing communication channel.

· EmailVision Study 2012 – 89.2% of marketing managers say that email is still as important or more important to their overall marketing strategy compared to two years ago.

· A study by Merkle – 74% of online adults prefer to receive corporate communications via email rather than social media, direct mail, text messages or telephone.

In reality, the email marketing perspective, with a twist, is more robust and popular than ever. Integration is the turn. In a Survey of Strong Email Marketing Trends, 68% of business leaders intend to integrate email marketing with social media. And marketing spending for email marketing (60%) and social media (55%) shows that business leaders intend to follow an integrated approach.

The new email marketing strategy

Employing email in conjunction with social media, search, and content marketing results in smarter email marketing. Because email covers all parts of the buying cycle and promotes permission marketing, it is powerful and effective. With its subscription feature, emails are directed to a target audience who wants to receive them. By itself, email encourages interactivity. But combined with social media, search, and content marketing, email marketing optimizes results.

Email Marketing Integration with Social Media

Social media connects prospects, customers, and companies. Once this is done, relationships are developed offline by email or phone. Email remains the preferred method because it is fast, effective, and efficient. With the integration, both channels reinforce each other as social media informs email marketing. Answer potential customers’ questions on social media sites in a personal, engaging, and focused way. This deepens and broadens your social network. And nurture your brand. Include links in your email to your social media sites to increase your following. Also, kindly suggest customers to recommend your company by sharing your email. Integrating email with social media improves effectiveness more than when each channel is used independently.

Email Marketing Integration with Search

Email’s superiority lies in its ability to address every part of the buying cycle. And it encompasses permission marketing, which has replaced disruption marketing. Integration with search gives you several benefits. Newsletters or ezines are a great way to expand your reach and raise awareness. Adding relevant keywords to your emails increases the likelihood that potential customers will find your newsletters. You can also attract more potential customers from search engines to your website by publishing newsletters on your site. Keyword-rich emails also help increase the chances that your emails will go viral. Combining email with search gives customers the marketing they want. As Jay Baer would say, the email has “Youtility” on it. This helps improve your leads and grow your business.

Integration of email marketing with content marketing

This is a no-brainer. You can use email as content, as a content delivery tool, and as a way to drive conversions. First, let’s take email as content. Don’t write about your products and services. Instead, focus on solving customer problems or discussing breakthrough industry news and trends affecting your customers. Email builds trust by posting relevant information. Email also serves as an effective delivery tool. You can attach value-added content such as product brochures, case studies, and videos. Lastly, email can lead to leads and landing pages. This improves conversions. Integrating email with content makes it easier for prospects and customers to access, assimilate, and act on the information you posted.

Email Marketing Outlook

Due to the rapid growth of mobile devices, email marketing may reach a tipping point in 2015. Today, email has many benefits, but its future lies in integrating with other marketing channels. As business leaders chase, the integration of email marketing with other channels suggests that email is here to stay. Clearly, your competitors think so, judging from where they are spending their money.

Questions for the marketer

Does your marketing plan have a holistic approach? Are you integrating email best practices into your marketing efforts? Are you increasing your leads and growing your business in the most efficient way possible? If you don’t have an unlimited budget, consider integrating smarter email marketing with your other marketing channels. If your lead generation needs to reboot, email can be a good place to start.