In B2B Marketing’s latest benchmarking report Lead Generation & Nurturing, increasing the quality of leads was rated as the most important lead activity for 2012.
Closely followed was increasing the quantity of leads and then increasing sales conversions.
This report, compiled from 291 interviews with B2B client-side marketers conducted in April 2012, pretty much echos our experience with lead generation for complex B2B sales propositions.
Against the backdrop of increasingly tough market conditions and the findings of a recent survey that showed “targeting new customers” as the top priority for B2B companies in 2012, this is hardly surprising.
Dig into the report a little further and you’ll see some interesting statistics around “quality vs quantity” for lead generation.
For example, Email Marketing remains number one for generating the largest quantity of leads, followed by Live Events (ie: trade shows) and then Telemarketing.
But when lead generation tactics for the highest quality of leads the order is 1) Live Events, 2) Telemarketing, 3) Email Marketing.
Way down the list for both quality and quantity comes Social Media, Webinars and Podcasts; even unloved traditional tactics such as Direct Mail rank above many of these.
It’s refreshing to see these numbers from B2B marketers at the sharp end.
If you formed a view of what works in lead generation based on all the industry noise you’d pretty much reverse the list of most effective and assume it was all about social media.
In reality, social media is an important part of the mix but, as I’ve posted previously, it’s not the most effective tactic for lead generation.
