Lead Generation – a challenge or a must?

Every now and then we hear about getting new customers, gaining customer loyalty, winning more customers, converting leads into customers, filling sales funnel, etc. and all this is about lead generation.

Lead generation is one of the most critical and challenging components for any business. It’s proved to be responsible for 42% of total sales. Lead generation combines many activities in it, starting with setting objectives → getting visitors → converting them to leads and a good follow up. 

“60% of the marketers name lead generation as one of their top three priorities and 26% say it’s their highest priority”

 

“17% of marketers spend 15+ hours a week on lead generation”

 

Lead generation methods can be conducted online and offline. The leads may come from various activities: via the Internet, through calls, through advertisement, list purchase, referrals, telemarketers, and advertisements. Here are some crucial lead generation activities:

Email

• 42% of businesses name email as one of their most effective lead generation channels
• 80.8% of users report reading email on mobile devices

Telephone

•  real-life conversation is the best way to build a connection

Content Marketing

• 81% of businesses have reported their blog as useful or critical to generating leads
• 43% of marketers generated a customer via their blog with less than 10% of total time allocation
•  9% of lead generation companies employ a full-time blogger

Social Media

• 62% of companies say that social media has become a more important source of leads and 53% of businesses have one person dedicated to social media activities at the company
• Marketers rate social media as the second-most important factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%)
• 65% of B2B companies have generated a lead from LinkedIn
• 77% of B2C companies have generated a lead from Facebook
• 40% of marketers report that Google+ is critical to their business
• Businesses with 301 to 1,000 Twitter followers have over 5 times more traffic than those with 1 to 25 followers
• Companies that use Twitter average double the amount of leads per month than those that do not
• 83% of Pinterest users are women. In the U.S., the most popular categories are Fashion, Desserts, Clothes and Birthdays

Trade Shows /Conferences

• 35% of B2B marketers say that ‘live events’ are most effective for lead generation’ pile

Webinars

• 80% of users said they would register for a whitepaper/ebook, while only 31% would register for a webinar

Search Engine Optimization

• 61% of global Internet users research products online
• 57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals
• 70% of the links search users click on are organic — not paid
• 46% of daily searches are for info on products or services
• 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results

Surely a good budget is needed for all these activities. According to HubSpot survey where 167 marketing professionals answered how they spent their marketing budgets and how effective each technique was in generating sales leads, the budget breakdown was as follows:

Sources: BtoB Magazine, Marketing Charts, HubSpot, MediaPost, Mindjumpers