Irrespective of the introduction of new communication channels, email marketing is still one of the most effective and reliable mediums of communication that most marketers use today. It is not only important but essential for a business’s success. Every day 269 billion emails are sent with an expected ROI of $32 for every $1 that is being spent on email marketing. And because of this same reason, most of the businesses are investing funds into email marketing to yield the best results. 

 

But wait, before you start using money and other valuable resources for lead generation in email marketing without any established game plan. With the intent to help you in developing your action plan, we have developed an absolute guide to email lead generation that you can leverage in 2020 to generate more email leads for your business. 

Below mentioned topics will be covered in this article: 

• What is Lead Generation in Email Marketing?
• B2B email lead generation 
• Process of lead generation via email marketing 
• Best free tools/software for email lead generation 

 

Before getting deep into the process and software which will help you design your email lead generation campaigns, let’s first understand what is email lead generation?

 

What is Email Lead Generation?

When you’re persuading your prospects to give you their contact information (to be used for pitching your products/services), you’re indeed generating a lead. But when that contact information is cut down to just their email addresses being collected through an opt-in form using digital media that becomes your email lead. 

 

B2B Email Lead Generation

B2B lead generation is somewhat different from B2C lead generation, but the ultimate goal remains the same i.e. to create warm leads. In B2B lead generation, companies look for contact information of other companies which could be offered companies’ products/services. 

 

However, you can’t just ask for their contact information right away, you have to wait for the right time when your prospects would be willing to do so. Prospects must be given something valuable in return for the contact information they’re providing. 

 

Some of the best practices for email lead generation are:

1. Subscription form on the website 
2. Lead Magnet 
3. Shopping Cart 
4. Subscription via social media 

 

Subscription Form 

Adding a signup form on the first page of your website or blog page is one way to ask the site visitors to give their contact information as soon as they land on your website. Typically only the email addresses of visitors are requested, as to gradually build the trust of prospects. 

Look at this simple yet sophisticated signup form from https://www.hotjar.com/

 

 

LEAD MAGNET 

Sometimes, in exchange for their contact information or email addresses, potential customers are given some digital incentives or rewards. These incentives could be anything from templates, to content samples, to PDF, to ebook etc.  

Here’s an example of Lead Magnet offering an incentive of eBook. 

 

Abandoned Cart Emails

Another tested way to generate an email lead is to send emails to your customers who added products in the cart but abandoned it without purchasing. Reminding the potential customers about their incomplete purchases increases the chances of nurturing those leads. 

Here’s a sample for your reference: 

 

Subscription via Social Media

Avail the benefits from your strong customer base on social media sites by adding subscription buttons in your about section. That way you’ll be able to get the contact information from your interested customers easily with the help of social media handles.

 

Lead Generation Funnel 

Step by step procedure by which companies find and nurture and finally lock leads. It is the process by which the businesses lead the prospects through the purchasing process. 

All the lead generation funnels contain 2 primary purposes: 

• Marketing/Awareness 
• Sales 

 

There’s no single perfect funnel template that could be or is used by companies. The steps involved in the lead generation funnel are modified according to the companies’ own needs and requirements. But each stage in the funnel is linked to either one of the above-mentioned purposes. Let’s take a closer look at the most basic steps involved in a lead generation funnel: 

 

Awareness 

The first step in any sales/lead funnel or the marketing campaign is not to sell anything but to increase understanding of the products/services. The purpose of the awareness campaigns is to deliver maximum knowledge to potential customers. Delivering maximum value in this stage would eventually help in getting the contact information effortlessly. Awareness could be created with the help of:

• Social Media Marketing
• SEO 
• Paid Ads, etc. 

 

An important point to take care of in this stage is not to require contact information because:

• It would either send people away instantly. 
• Or it would generate premature leads. 

 

Database

In the next step, you create a database with the names of potential customers. This is not a proper lead but having this database would help you to figure out which people to target in your next email marketing campaigns. 

 

Engagement

After that, prospects are given access to any valuable digital material in return for their contact information, to be used for additional targeted campaigns. You need to make sure that prospects start engaging with your business so that they know the email campaigns are designed keeping in mind their specific needs. 

 

Prospects 

All the prospects who are starting engaging with your business through social media campaigns, website or emails are ready to go through the lead scoring process. Which gives you detailed information about the leads and whether they fit with your standards of a potential lead or not. The lead scoring method you choose to use depends upon the type of business you’re in and the type of leads that you want to generate. 

 

Qualified Leads

Every lead generation funnel generates 2 kinds of leads: 

 

Marketing Qualified Lead – a prospect who shows engages with the marketing campaigns of the business or shows a significant interest in the products/services being offered by the company and whose chances of becoming a customer are greater as compared to other leads. 

Sales Qualified Lead – Leads that have shown notable interest in the company are further evaluated by the sales team to carry forward to the next stages for selling purposes. 

 

Customer/Opportunity

Once a lead has been qualified as a sales lead, it is exposed additionally to other more targeted marketing campaigns. And ultimately after this point your potential lead becomes a paying customer for your business. But you shouldn’t really stop the funnel there and take feedback from your customers to delight them in the best possible way. 

 

Recycled

You may come across many prospects who show interest in products/services at some point in time but are not ready to make any decision regarding buying the product or availing the services. That doesn’t necessarily mean they purchase in the future. Create a recycled database with all these leads and keep on disbursing knowledge and other valuable content to these leads related to the product until they are ready to make a decision or go to the next step. 

 

Tools/Software for Email Lead Generation

Because of the ongoing competition in the contemporary world, everyday internet users are exposed to a ton of information but they can process and retain a small amount of that information. This increases the need to have a strong email lead generation system to outrank your competitors. 

Various email lead generation software have been developed to simplify this process for businesses. Here are some of those free tools to develop some astonishing email lead campaigns:

1. Hubspot 
2. Intercom 
3. Hotjar 
4. Turnstile by Wisita 
5. Optingun 

 

Epilogue

Lead generation via email marketing has proven to bring vigorous outcomes for many companies out there. But there’s no one perfect method that works for every business. The way you carry forward your email marketing campaigns depend majorly on your business nature and kind of leads you plan to develop. Keep on trying out new things in your strategy until you come up with a strategy that gives your company the best conversion rates. This absolute beginner’s guide to email lead generation is directed to provide you with a scheme to begin with. 

 

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Want to generate more leads? Brandpa proposes the absolute beginner’s guide to email lead generation describing the process of lead generation and the best free tools for email lead generation.