The Evolution of Email for Lead Generation
According to our recent survey of B2B marketers, email is widely used for lead generation: 86% of responders deploy email for lead generation. In fact, email was the top online medium for B2B marketers, besting both webinars and paid search.
Although it is often suggested that email is best suited for customer retention, this survey of 249 B2B marketers indicates that email is a key tool for customer acquisition.
The story gets more interesting as we take a look at what brands B2B marketers are using:
- Two economical email providers are ranked highly - Constant Contact and Vertical Response are favored over more expensive email tools (see below).
- Lead Generation Suites and CRM systems are often used for email marketing - its significant to note that a lead generation suite such as Eloqua leads this segment, even though email marketing is just one of its functions. Salesforce.com, a CRM tool and other lead generation suites such as Vtrenz, Aprimo and Marketo also crack the top 20 list.
For the survey, we defined lead generation suites as a group of two or more lead generation tools. For example most suites include both email and web analytics modules.
According to survey responders, Eloqua is the dominant player in lead generation suites, garnering more responses than the next four vendors combined.
So there you have it, even an old Web 1.0 tool like email continues to evolve.
Source: Directory of Lead Generation Tools 2008
Labels: B2B lead generation, email, Web 2.0 media
posted by Robert Lesser @ Wednesday, December 10, 2008
2 Comments
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2 Comments:
Email is most definetely a good source of lead generation for B2B marketers. Email has been the standard for CRM Systems for as long as I can remember.
Until now there has not been the option to use Mobile Marketing Ulitizing text messaging that has a 95% read rate. Contest are being ran using text message but there has not been a viable option for a CRM System until recently
Marketers might have a look at
Mobile Marketing
Email will definitely remain a strong medium for marketers. I believe that shift towards lead nurturing applications that use a multi touch approach, track activity, response and really help push leads to a sales ready stage with some amount of automation is what a look of marketers will look towards over the next year. Eloqua is a fine example. Nurture should be a good one to watch this year as it tries to bridge the gap between an email application and the more comprehensive marketing automation applications like Eloqua making lead nurturing technology more affordable and cost effective
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