Email and Social Media Top List of Most Common B2B Customer Acquisition Tactics

When it comes to reaching out to potential customers, new research shows that B2B marketers are still relying heavily on email marketing.

The “2016 State of Pipeline Marketing” report from Bizible, Heinz Marketing, Radius, ReachForce, and Uberflip found that the vast majority of B2B marketers (88.6 percent) are using email to acquire new customers. Social media (82 percent), content marketing (81.2 percent), and SEO (78 percent) were also popular channels for acquisitions.

Some of these methods generated more income than others. Word-of-mouth referrals (22 percent) had the largest positive impact on revenue stemming from B2B marketing initiatives. Just 8.3 percent stated that email marketing had the largest impact, while only 3.1 percent said the same about social media.

For nearly half of surveyed B2B marketers (45.7 percent), generating more leads is their top priority. About 34.3 percent said that converting leads into customers/revenue is their main goal.

B2B Marketers and Email Marketing in 2015

In last year’s “State of Pipeline” marketing report published by Bizible, more than one-third of marketers (39.3 percent) similarly said that their main priority was generating more leads. Additionally, most of the respondents (89.2 percent) stated that they were using email marketing for demand generation.

However, this tactic appeared to be contributing more to company revenue at the time. About 16 percent said that email marketing is the channel that had the greatest impact on their revenue. This was followed by trade show booths (12.9 percent), SEO (12.5 percent) and content marketing (12.1 percent).