• by Jess Nelson , January 8, 2016

Email was the overwhelming favorite in a survey of 156 marketing professionals titled marketing director to CMO, with 79% of respondents saying email marketing was the best marketing channel for lead nurturing. The study was released by Act-On Software and Ascend2.

A company’s Web site followed in second place with 47% of respondents, while 38% of marketers cited social media as an effective channel for new leads. Thirty-one percent of respondents selected their company’s blog, followed by 26% selecting events, 25% search and 12% mobile.

Marketers agree that increasing conversion rates and sales opportunities are the top objectives of their lead nurturing campaigns, according to the report -- but they struggle to incorporate the tactics and tools needed to boost their email marketing success rates.

Only 19% of marketers selected multichannel engagement or data segmentation as objectives to their lead nurturing campaigns, but these have been shown to significantly boost the ROI and engagement rates of email marketing.

Marketers also report that they struggle to create new, relevant and personalized content.

Some 69% of marketers responded that creating relevant content was the most effective lead-nurturing tactic, but 58% also cited it as their most challenging obstacle.

Furthermore, segmenting campaigns also remains elusive. Only 41% of marketers said targeting by prospect persona was an effective lead-nurturing tactic, followed by 40% selecting personalized campaigns as beneficial and 39% targeting by decision state.

Yet personalized emails have been shown to increase transaction rates by as much as 600% per Experian. Segmenting campaigns also boost revenue by as much as 760%, per Campaign Monitor.