CSO Insights Blog Posts

Lead Generation Optimization Is "OUT"--Web Conversion Measures are IN

What Gets Measured Gets Managed

When I say Lead Generation Optimization (LGO) is "OUT," I mean this week we released our annual LGO report. More than 600 companies responded to this year's survey; approximately one-third of respondents were Services firms, one-third Technology, and the final third Non-Tech/Manufacturing or Other.

For the first time in the seven years of this report, a slim majority (51%) of firms responding now track the ROI of their marketing campaigns. As mentioned in my earlier blog, the objective of these campaigns is much more closely aligned with sales objectives. With respect to evaluating marketing ROI, the success measures, again, are much more closely tied to sales.

Firms reported the top three metrics they use to assess the value of their lead generation programs are:

Total number of leads generated per campaign
Number of leads that convert to sales opportunities
Amount of revenue ultimately closed from those opportunities

A key part of determining ROI is the ability to track the disposition of all leads by source via a CRM system. With over 75% of all sales organizations leveraging CRM applications today, marketing now has visibility into the life cycle of the leads they are generating. This allows them to expand from just measuring success in terms of "awareness" and "impressions"- the metrics they often had to rely on in the past-to more tangible measures noted above.

What Gets Fed Grows

2009 was an ugly year for so many reasons we each want to forget about it as quickly as possible. Added to all the other reasons was the fact that while 85% of firms had increased their revenue targets for this year, 67% had frozen or reduced their marketing budgets.

In addition to a healthier global economic picture and increased business activity, in 2010 marketing is benefiting from its own economic stimulus package; this year 85% of firms are once again raising their revenue targets but, unlike last year, in 2010 72% of firms are increasing their marketing budgets. Figure 1 shows where these firms will be spending their larger budgets this year.

Figure-1-Lead-Generation-Changes

Figure 1

As you can see, web-related marketing activities are IN. It should be noted that the chart represents change in areas of investment, not relative size. So Direct Mail could see 39% of firms investing less in this category and redirecting the savings to E-mail marketing ,yet the Direct Mail allowance could still be much larger than that set aside for E-mail .

Still, the writing is on the wall like so much graffiti: web-oriented marketing is IN and in ascendance.

Your Next Move

Is your marketing budget aligned with your top producing lead generation programs?

Using the top metrics described earlier, determine what lead generation programs are producing the largest amount of quality leads. If you're like the majority of respondents, these programs might be your top four:

Email marketing
Live Events/Tradeshows
Website registrations
Webinars

Whatever your top programs may be, feed them, manage them and watch them grow.

To learn more, check out our complete 2010 Lead Generation Report.

Sell well,

Barry Trailer

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Barry Trailer

Referral Marketing

Saturday August 21, 2010

Russ,

You're right that the most effective, highest yield leads are referrals; everyone knows word-of-mouth advertising and referrals are best but, as you say, funding goes elsewhere.

This may be changing with all the interest--along with all the hyype--surrounding social media.

It's not just funding. You may be familiar with Joanne Black and her program, "No More Cold Calling." In seminars she asks groups the close rates on various lead sources; referrals are ALWAYS highest. Then she asks how many firms have a structured (i.e., conscious) referral strategy in place. The response is always shockingly low.

To your point, even without funding, putting a structured, consistent and simple referral request program in place is an easy win most companies are overlooking.

Thanks for your comment.

Barry

Russ Emrick

Missing catagory

Saturday August 21, 2010

Funny how the most important source of leads never even hits the radar, let alone funded: referral marketing and networking.

None of the topics listed score above 50% of how clients find salespeople or venders according to RAIN Selling's survey data.

Steve Watts

65% investing in Web site content

Monday August 16, 2010

This is curious to me--I'd be interested in seeing how many people had a plan in place to leverage the additional marketing spend on Web site content.

How are they using that to target potential clients? How do they expect to drive traffic to their new content? How do they expect to convert the traffic into a lead, and then ultimately a customer?