"Email is used by most B2B marketers for a variety of purposes—many of which are executed distinctly, sometimes without visibility across the organization," writes Ardath Albee at Marketing Interactions. "There's brand awareness, lead generation, customer retention and loyalty, driving Web traffic, promoting sharing with colleagues and on social networks, lead nurturing, newsletters and more."

But such broad usage of email can cause problems if departments don't coordinate their campaigns. For instance, Albee notes, you might unwittingly create a frequency nightmare like this:

• Your prospect receives a message from your carefully designed nurturing program.
• But she's also subscribed to a corporate newsletter that goes out the same day.
• A few days later, she gets information about a new product launch unrelated to your nurturing program's message.
• Which is followed by an invitation to a webinar from your company's event manager.

"All of a sudden your unsubscribe rates go up or your opens and clicks go down," she says. "What may be a mystery to you is your audience saying, 'Whoa, Nellie!'"

A lack of interdepartmental communication can also lead to irrelevant messages when a prospect's status has changed. For example:

• He downloads a trial version of your product and then buys it, but still receives messages telling him the trial period is about to end.
• He moves into the sales funnel, but your nurturing program continues sending him messages that don't match what he hears from sales.

The Po!nt: Dot your i's, cross your t's, coordinate your e's. Avoid recipient confusion by making sure your right hand knows when—and why—your left hand is pushing the email send button.

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