Researchers estimate that United States firms alone spent US $1.51 billion on email marketing in 2011 and will grow to $2.468 billion by 2016. Research from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report shows that the email marketing strategy for most B2B marketers still predominantly revolves around sending mass emails to a marketer’s entire mailing list. The big question is about nurture email leads.

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.

The email segmentation and lead nurturing is made possible through marketing automation software and contacts database. Even for those that have the best software in the world, the lead nurturing strategy and process is very complicated. Here are a couple of strategies to better email nurturing processes:

Nurture Your Subscribers

Your subscribers are not always ready for a sales call. They subscribed to get to know your products/services and your business knowledge. Your email strategy should be planned in a way that the subscribers transit from a passive email follower to a buying customer. Once a person has subscribed to your mailing list then you should send him 2-3 educational emails where he gets to know your company more and during this process you should try to learn their specific needs and then focus your message around his needs. This is a time taking exercise, but will be worth it if executed intelligently and with diligence. To learn your prospects needs use tracking software and email marketing software that gives insight into each and every activity that the email newsletter causes them to perform. Establish a digital road-map of their interaction with your content and your sales team will thank you.

Qualified Leads Nurturing

Researchers from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report have found that 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to Sales, but only 27% of those are actually qualified or ready to talk to Sales. You should nurture your leads to the point at which sales conversion is most likely.  Nurture your audience to engage them and touch their unique pain points/interests by analyzing their online interactions and digital body language. Once, this lead has been further qualified then bring your Sales team into the conversation.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]