Email isn’t dead for B2B marketers

Although many B2B organizations are writing off email marketing in favor of newer Internet marketing methods, such as social media, this technique is still highly effective for lead generation. In fact, customer acquisition via email has quadrupled in the past four years, according to a study from Custora, a marketing provider. This is significantly higher than social media’s ability to attract new customers.

Email also leads to better customer lifetime value than social media. The study found clients gained through Twitter had CLV rates 23 percent lower than average. In the case of B2C companies, this could be because consumers follow brands on Twitter to access frequent discounts. In fact, email customers are 11 percent more valuable than average. Although companies in both the B2B and B2C landscapes should maintain a social media presence, they can serve as relationship-building tools rather than customer acquisition vehicles.

Since email leads to higher CLV, it’s important for B2B marketers to continue to pursue it in part of their Internet lead generation efforts.

How B2B companies can use marketing automation to maximize the effectiveness of email

Although many critics say email is losing effectiveness for marketing because millennials don’t rely on it as the primary channel of communication, it’s still a major player in the professional world. While social networks like LinkedIn have proved useful for B2B, there’s no chance your team’s prospects don’t have business email addresses.

Marketing automation can help B2B organizations improve their email campaigns. Since many companies have access to a large amount of prospect data, this can be used to personalize communications, which can drive the message home. Additionally, if a lead takes a specific action, it can trigger the marketing automation platform to send an email. This can improve lead generation and customer acquisition efforts.