Email marketing named most effective (and easiest) lead gen tactic

With new methods for lead generation popping up left, right and center it’s no surprise that marketers are constantly trying to stay atop of methods that best meet their business needs whilst also remaining resource effective.

But no matter how many new channels, tools or gadgets are thrown their way, it seems that email marketing prevails as the most effective and the easiest to execute according to the latest study from Ascend2.

Where’s the data coming from?

The report comes from Ascend2 who surveyed 244 business people that work for companies in the US. Forty-nine of the participants worked for B2B firms, 25% B2C firms and 26% worked for a hybrid of the two. The participants were a mix of business owners, executives, salespeople, and marketers. The two most interesting questions asked in the survey were;

1. What are the most effective lead generation tactics?

and

2. Which lead generation tactics are the most difficult to execute?

What is the most effective lead gen tactic?

When asked which lead gen tactic is the most effective, email marketing topped the list along with content marketing.

Surprisingly (at least to me) was the ranking of webinars or virtual events below paid search or online advertising. In my own experience, webinars and virtual events have always provided much higher quality leads than online advertising and as such, I would always rank webinars higher than that of paid channels. However, this could be a reflection of who completed the study – perhaps the 244 people worked for quite traditional companies that had to yet invested enough money into webinars to see some positive results. Perhaps it’s a reflection of their audiences or the end users they are trying to reach; not every target audience is interested in watching or attending webinars and virtual events.

What is the most difficult lead gen tactic to execute?

The second interesting finding for this study was the difficulty in execution people ranked different lead gen tactics.

Email marketing was ranked the lowest in difficulty making it the easiest to implement and execute against its competitors. Not surprisingly, content marketing was ranked as the hardest lead gen tactic to execute.

Why isn’t that surprising? Well, content marketing can take a long time to get up and running. You also need the talent to have content marketing efforts running smoothly. You need someone (or even a team) with skills in copywriting, design, SEO, blogging, vlogging, email marketing and social media just to name a few. In comparison, email marketing doesn’t require a lot of specialized skills to either implement or execute. All you need is a trusty platform, a contact list and something to say to your audience.

Where to now?

If you’ve not already added email marketing to your marketing mix for fear of difficulty or effectiveness then this should be the giant paddle that hits you in the behind to get you started.

If you are already using email marketing as a lead gen tactic then you’re in a winning position – well done! What you need to focus on now is ways to make your email marketing even more effective. Start with areas like your copy and content, your subject lines and most importantly, your overall strategy.

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