Email Marketing Lead Generation Techniques to Generate and Close More Leads

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Leads, leads, leads. Everyone wants them, and once you have a few, you’ll want more. When you get more, you’ll want better quality ones. It’s all part of doing business.

While everyone wants more leads, getting them is another matter. There are lots of ways to go about it. Some work more successfully than others, and some are certainly more expensive.

If you are reading this blog post, you may be researching every possible technique to boost your email collection numbers. Email marketing lead generation can take time, but there are plenty of ways to get ahead of the curve.

Now, let’s dig into some of the core concepts behind email marketing lead generation so you can grow your business faster!

What is email marketing lead generation?

First and foremost, lead generation is an essential part of a marketing strategy that focuses on collecting customer information instead of overtly soliciting or even pushing for a direct sale. It is often executed during a potential customer’s first interaction with a brand.

So, email marketing lead generation is a means of collecting leads through the use of an opt-in email form. It is all about collecting information on potential customers, such as their name and email address.

However, an email marketing lead generation doesn’t end with the lead capture form. It also involves strategically nurturing leads to transform them into customers ultimately.

Related topics:

• Create a Winning Lead Generation System
• Top 15 Lead Generation Companies
• Best B2B Lead Generation Strategies

Why is email marketing lead generation important?

Without an effective strategy for gathering leads, your business will struggle to make sales and grow. But with the right system in place for attracting leads, you’ll be able to nurture your audience and then guide them to the ultimate conversion from prospects to paying customers.

Research shows that more than 48% of marketers believe that email marketing is the most effective online tactic for generating leads online.

A good lead generation strategy will benefit your business in the following ways:

• It lets you target your desired customers
• It helps boost your brand awareness
• More leads equate to more customers, meaning more revenue

While there are plenty of different types of lead generation strategies that are helpful, the focus of this post is on email marketing in particular.

11 email marketing lead generation techniques for your business

Now that we have covered some of the basics, let’s dive into some of the best techniques for accelerating the email marketing lead generation process.

1. Offer lead magnets with gated content inside

To make it understandable, think of the lead magnet as a more compelling lead capture page. A lead magnet is defined as an incentive that marketers offer to prospects in exchange for their email address or other contact information.

As with each lead capture page, something of greater value should be inside the lead magnet. Along with your lead magnet should be an ask for a potential lead’s email address as well as other optional details to unlock said content.

A lead magnet could be an infographic, report, or checklist, while gated content should be much more substantial.

For instance, take a closer look at the following lead magnet of Hipmunk, as well as its promise of expert flight advice as the gated content. Since this campaign is already implemented through email, the lead information required to unlock the content is in the form of more details, including home airport, destination, and travel dates.

2. Perform lead scoring to qualify your leads

A vital part of marketing is the ability to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. Lead scoring can actually help you do that by ensuring you capture higher-quality prospects.

Lead scoring is an effective way to help you sort and prioritize your leads. It ensures that you get qualified leads that are most likely to welcome your emails.

Let’s say that someone visits the product page on your website. He looks over the specs, checks out your product images, watches a demo video, but ultimately decides to click away.

At this point, you show an exit popup, which offers a 20% percent discount on a future purchase.

That’s quite tempting, right? The visitor has already viewed your product and showed interest, which makes him a highly qualified potential lead.

After filling out the form, he’ll receive the promised email with a 20% coupon code. Maybe your email even includes a link back to the page he was viewing.

You are far more likely to generate a sale due to the offer you provided and the time you choose. Using events like this in order to trigger emails and extend offers can vastly improve email lead generation.

3. Grab attention with email subject lines

The best subject lines can grab your receipts’ interest immediately. They make it very hard for recipients to click the “delete” button.

It’s critical to get creative with ways to inspire curiosity or urgency to click. You can use elements like bold, italic font, and emojis to capture your audience’s attention. This method can make a massive difference to the success of your email marketing campaign by increasing your email open rates, and ultimately your conversion rates.

For example, you’re sending an email with a discount promotion. Your original subject line says, “Get 25% off all products today.”

Not too bad, right? But you can make it better:

• Snag 25% off exceptional products today
• Want a fantastic [product]? Grab your 25% coupon!
• Read for an amazing [result]? Take advantage of the most generous deal this week!

For more ideas on your email subject lines, you can read our following topics:

• 101 Killing Email Headlines Examples
• 33 Holiday Email Subject Lines and Most Favored Emojis
• 99 Tempting Email Subject Lines for Spring Season
• 33+ Best Thanksgiving Email Subject Lines
• 32+ Best Halloween Email Subject Lines

4. Design clean and concise emails

When it comes to email lead generation, the design of your emails is extremely important. You should create clean and concise emails, and they should not be overly long. A lot of excess in your email design can distract from your message.

Below are several best practices to follow when designing your emails:

• Plain fonts. Your emails should not be flashy. They should be easy to read, so remember to use plain fonts.

• Simple design. Pick a clean, simple template design that can make your emails easy on the eyes. This will help you generate more leads.

• Text formatting. Use well-spaced, concise wording, as well as highlight important information to make it as simple as possible for your recipients to digest your email content.

• Clear CTA (call-to-action). Your CTA button must be easy to see and click on, especially for readers on mobile devices.

5. Offer valuable content

Rather than delivering “fluff content” just to send an email, offer useful, targeted content that will keep your subscribers engaged.

Always prioritize value over all else. In order to accomplish valuable content, all you need to do is find your audience’s major pain points and then create intent-based content around them.

For example, suppose your audience’s biggest challenge is creating a profitable online business. In that case, you might generate high-quality content that answers the question of “How to build a successful website starting from scratch,” break it into sections and then send it out in a series of emails.

6. Use email automation

Email automation means using a software service in order to automatically send your emails to specific segments at specific times. It is a “set and forget it” approach to email marketing, so you can free up more of your time. It also allows for automatic personalization, helping you improve your email campaigns.

You can use specific triggers to deliver the right emails to the right audience at the right time. Potential triggers could be when your customers do any of the following:

• Opt in to your email list
• Buy your product
• Register for your webinar
• Subscribe to a service

When these triggers occur, a response email will get sent to the individual. It is an automatic and highly-targeted strategy that lets you capitalize on a particular event.

Read more:

• Top 7 Best Email Marketing Automation Tools
• How to Build Automation Email Marketing for E-commerce?
• E-commerce Email Marketing Automation: Guide to Start!

7. Always include a strong CTA

Every email should include one clear and compelling CTA that is easy for recipients to act on. In order to incorporate a strong CTA in your emails, use creative language that can attract your audience’s attention and encourage them to follow through.

The most effective CTAs are those that can incorporate an element of urgency, excitement, or mystery. They’re hard to ignore and spur recipients into action, helping you improve your conversions.

Below are several ways to help you get more action from your CTAs:

• Use action-oriented text. Draw your subscribers in and compel them to take action by using text, such as “Get the Discount, “Try for Free,” “Reserve Your Spot,” and so on.

• Keep it short. As a general rule of thumb, keep your CTA text to just 2 or 3 words. If necessary, you can use up to 5 or 6, but no more than that.

• Create urgency. Use some phrases like “3 Spots Left,” “Shop Now!” “50% Off Today Only” in order to create a sense of urgency and generate higher click-through rates.

8. Leverage social media channels

Your social media networks can be a powerful tool to help you build your email list. You can add a strong CTA to your profiles and schedule daily posts to promote your free download, so that you keep generating leads on autopilot.

Besides promoting your email list on social media, you should also promote your social accounts through your email list. This way, you’ll grow your social media audience and your email list at the same time. For the best results on social media channels, you can try Top FREE Social Media Management Tools.

Below are some additional ways to leverage your social accounts to build your email list:

• Add an opt-in form and sign-up button to your Facebook page in order to give people more opportunities to sign up for your email list

• Use promoted pins as well as Facebook ads to grow your email list at a faster rate

• Add content upgrades to your own blog posts and promote them on Pinterest to grow your traffic and audience

• Add click-to-tweets to your content upgrades so your subscribers can share your lead magnets with their networks, therefore expanding your reach.

9. A/B test to improve open and click-through rates

A/B testing your emails is essential for optimizing your copy and strategy. There’s always something that needs improving, and by testing the different versions of your emails, you can find the best-performing emails to improve your conversion rates.

For each email that you’d like to test, first determine what you need to test. This could be any of the elements, such as the subject line, body text, images, layout, or CTA.

Once you have decided which elements to test first, you can then use the built-in A/B testing tools in your email marketing software to start running the test.

10. Incentivize referrals from your current subscribers

One of the best tactics to generate leads for your business is to put your existing customers and subscribers to work for you.

You can offer appealing rewards to incentivize your current subscribers to refer their friends to your email list. This is much simpler than trying to get them to refer customers to buy your products.

Let’s look at how Bombas did this:

You’re likely to experience higher conversions if you offer an attractive reward, such as a significant discount, free shipping for a future purchase, or any other similar benefit. Ensure that your offer is worth their while, and your subscribers will be happy to promote your email list to their circle of family and friends.

11. Encourage recipients to forward and share your emails

You can add a line or two specifically to do this after your CTA. For example, something like “Did you find this email interesting? Share it with your friends!” will work, with social-sharing buttons underneath. Plus, you may add a link to forward your email, in case a subscriber doesn’t know how to do it for some reason.

This tactic is a way to grow your email list with the help of existing leads. Much like trigger emails, if you do this right, you’ll find leads generated even during the most unproductive of your days.

The final verdict

Lead generation is actually a foundational marketing concept that refers to gathering much-needed information on prospects to strengthen connections with them as well as build enough trust to lead up to a sale.

The idea is not so different when applied to email marketing, even though the techniques used to grow email lists and generate leads may not be as simple as those of traditional marketing.

Each of the 11 techniques listed above has been proven to work effectively over time, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Implement them in your email marketing campaign and start growing your customer base today.