Email Automation as a Tool in B2B Lead Generation

From social media to offline conferences, lead generation uses multiple sources but emailing has remained the best channel to reach new audiences. It is simple, effective, and cheap. It brings highly qualified leads. It helps nurture leads and prospects. Every $1 spent on email marketing brings $38. Email is part of marketing campaigns with tremendous results.

However, a successful email marketing effort needs fine-tuning. Today’s business tools make it possible for companies to automate their email outreach. Consult professionals in the appointment setting to make sure your email deliverability and CPRs are not compromised. Email professionals will recommend the best email marketing service and will set up email automation.

Email Lead Generation: How?

With email marketing being one of the best practices for lead generation, your business simply can’t let go of a potential client without getting their email address first. How can you do it?

• Add a subscription form on a website. Probably all websites have a signup form somewhere on the far left or right side of the page. However, if you want to have as many visitors converted into subscribers as possible, you have to offer them something enticing. A lead magnet. Offer to send some tips and tricks useful for the visitor’s interest or to deliver a monthly digest about innovations in the industry.
• Add links to your chatbots in social media on a website. Creating multiple channels for the visitors of your website to get their contact details Multichannel forms (links to Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, etc.) will bring you more subscribers than a signup form on its own.  
• Use social media to sign people up. It is possible to add a sign-up form on your social media profiles too. It will allow you to turn your audience on social media into email leads. Facebook provides sign-up forms and Instagram is on the way.

How to Get the Most from Email Outreach?

Now, when you laid your hands on a ton of valid email addresses, move carefully and with precision.

Set Up Email Automation

Setting up email automation workflows will get emails sent at the preferred time while you get busy with other important things. You just need to choose a software service, provide a list of email addresses and email texts or templates, and set up specific times.

Email automation is usually triggered by specific events. It is up to you to set up which triggers will cause an email to be sent but usually email automation is launched when a lead:

• Signed up for a subscription
• Bought a product or a service
• Subscribed to a newsletter
• Registered for a webinar

Send Drip Email Campaigns

The first email triggered by a single event can launch a fully-fledged drip email campaign where emails one-by-one are sent to a lead on a preset timeline. Thanks to well-chosen triggers, the automated software sends warm, rather than cold, emails to your target audience.

In drip email campaigns, automated sequences of consequent emails are not long. Usually 2 to 5 emails with 2- to 5-day delays in between. Here are examples of drip email campaigns:

• Welcome new subscribers (3 emails with an incentive to get started in the last email)
• Welcome new customers (3 emails with information on sales in the last email)
• Nurture leads and educate about your services (5 emails with a discount code in the last email)
• Complete the purchase (2 emails, one to let know that you noticed the lead abandoned a cart on the website and the other with an incentive to make a purchase)
• Promote special offers/events (3 emails)
• Re-engage inactive customers (3 emails)

Remember about Cold Emailing

Successful lead generation requires your lists of email addresses to be replenished on a regular basis. In addition to the email addresses you get from your website and social media, look for new leads in less direct ways. Here’s a top three of how to find email addresses:

• Go to LinkedIn. Many people put their addresses directly on their LinkedIn profiles. Now you have not only an email address but the pattern of the person’s company, i.e. john.doe@belkins.io. Use the pattern for other positions you want to get in touch with in this company. For Jane Joe, Head of their Email Deliverability Team you can use the pattern jane.doe@belkins.io or janed@belkins.io. Then check it out in your Gmail account by pasting the email address in the address line and see if that address exists.
• Ask for a contact. Do it via website live chat. The idea is to find anyone human in the company you can contact and ask how you can reach out to a specific person you need. Message them and write something to the effect: “I’m looking for the right person to reach out to. One of our clients is looking for a service like yours and I want to recommend you. Any chance you could send me the email of one of your sales teams?”
• Use third-party data providers. For example, Global Database, a cloud-based solution, provides accurate and validated data, i.e. social media account links, corporate email addresses, phone numbers, etc.  
• Use Chrome extensions. There are many email finder Chrome extensions and they are all paid tools. If you need company addresses, try these ones:

• Kaspr – $29/month (5 free credits per month)
• Find that email – $29/month (50 free credits per month)
• Skrapp – $49/month (100 free credits per month)
• ColdCRM – $79/month (50 free credits per month)
• LeadIQ – $60/month and up

If you need personal addresses, choose between: 

• Lusha – $75/month (5 free credits per month); and
• RocketReach – $39/month (5 free credits per month)

Use these tips and you will never run out of new email addresses for your cold emailing practices.

What Email Marketing Service to Choose?

No email outreach is possible without a trustworthy email marketing service. Not all email services are suitable for email outreach campaigns. Yahoo!, Outlook, and Gmail are not the first go-to choices because sending bulk emails is not possible with them. They will flag you as spam and harm your email marketing deliverability rates.

Here’s a quick Top Five of the best email marketing services:

1. Moosend   $8/month
2. ActiveCampaign     $9/month
3. MailerLite  $10/month
4. Mailchimp $15/month
5. Benchmark     $15/month

Wrapping Up

Automated email outreach is a tremendous tool for lead generation but it needs fine-tuning and additional tools to make it work. However, as soon as you learn the ropes, you will have your email deliverability rates improved and your leads and prospects nurtured. If, however, all that seems like a terrible chore to you, there are many lead generation and appointment setting companies that will be happy to help you with email automation and deliverability rates.