WEBSITES TOP ONLINE B2B LEAD GEN TOOL
LISTEN To The Daily Numbers podcast [MP3].
Demandbase
41% of B2B marketing/IT professionals say personal connections/referrals are their top lead source.
23% cited corporate websites.
14% said email was the top lead generation tool.
Half that, 7%, cite online advertising (banners, search advertising).
And only 3% cited social media, which includes video.
THOUGHT: Corporate websites and email marketing are the one-two punch of online B2B lead generation.
You buy and/or attract website traffic through advertising or search engine optimization and you capture and nurture leads through email by compelling your visitors to give up their address in exchange for exclusive content like a white paper, signing up for an email newsletter, or through your Contact Us form.
And you measure all this by using your analytics to understand your traffic, conversions and ultimately, sales.
That’s the ideal.
But for a lot of companies, the ideal breaks down due to a whole host of reasons ranging from failing to provide useful or compelling content, to making it way too hard for leads to convert through onerous online forms, for example, to a failure to measure marketing efforts properly.
Often, the approach is, we need to drive more traffic to the website (not stopping to ask who, or what kind of traffic) and we’ll get more leads by getting more volume. That may or may not work but without the proper measurement tools in place and an understanding of what those analytics mean, companies are left with a gut sense that it might be working rather than concrete answers.
Be clear about what goals you want to accomplish with your website, identify the specific things you want your website visitors to do that indicate success (download a white paper, subscribe to an email, fill out a contact form, etc.), measure those acts, and determine which channels are top performers (organic search traffic, search ads, Twitter, etc.).
Work to maximize the top performing channels, and work to improve (or abandon) those that under perform.
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Newsreel – Swimsuit Fashions, 1952.
Thank you in advance for a consolidated social media analytics dashboard. Anyone? Please?
GET THESE INSIGHTS DELIVERED DAILY TO YOUR INBOX:
The e-Strategy Academy covers all aspects of digital marketing including search optimization & marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, mobile marketing & public relations.