Email marketing is still one of the most commonly used lead generation tools. According to data collected by Marketing Sherpa, a whopping four-fifths of businesses (81 percent) still make heavy use of email as a lead generation tool. In fact, it was ranked first out of all the personal advertising channels used.
While email marketing is currently the top digital communication channel used by brands to generate leads and reach customers, it’s crucial that sales and marketing teams realize that they are best off using a variety of communication methods.
Social media was close behind at 72 percent, showing that companies are investing more budget into their social media initiatives. Although social media is not currently used as prevalently as email, brands need to realize its time as an effective and established tactic has arrived.
While mobile marketing is still in its relative infancy compared with social media and email marketing, it’s beginning to see more use among brands as well. Mobile marketing was ranked last, with approximately 15 percent of respondents.
Bringing it All Together
Although you might have a specified target audience, the fact of the matter is that every prospect is different and consumes media in a variety of ways. One prospect might check their email messages every hour, while another may log in only once a week. Conversely, you have people that Tweet constantly, while other members of your audience might not even have a Facebook account. You need to use all of marketing channels to ensure you are reaching everyone in your target audience.
However, managing all of these different campaigns across a variety of channels can be complicating. Many businesses know they should avoid heavily favoring one platform over another, but because their time is limited, they end up doing just that.
Looking to remedy this time constraint, companies are turning to distributed marketing automation platforms to centralize all of their initiatives in a single spot. This makes it easier to create and distribute relevant collateral across a number of campaigns and allows businesses to diversify how they approach customers so that aren’t relying exclusively on a single channel.
Brands must realize that nowadays, consumers use myriad communication strategies to engage brands. If they’re on the go, it may be a smartphone or tablet. When they are at work, it could be email on a computer or laptop. If they are watching the television, they may be browsing social networks. The key is meeting them with the right message at the right time on the right platform.