A new study the MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and Insights on Attracting and Converting the Modern B2B Buyers shows that B2B firms still rely on tried-and-true tactics that have driven their lead generation programs in the past.
The study shows that businesses with up to 100 employees are more willing and more active in the use of the new technology opportunities. They actively embrace marketing ways like website optimization, email marketing, paid search – PPC marketing, social media, search engine optimization SEO, marketing automation and virtual events – webinars.
The study also shows that businesses with more than 1000 employees are relying more on trade shows and print advertising. But compared to businesses with up to 100 employees they use less website optimization, email marketing, paid search – PPC marketing, social media and search engine optimization SEO.
There is nothing wrong to use tactics that work. But it is a failure to not develop those tactics to improve them to be more productive in the today’s technology opportunities.
To reach the today’s B2B buyer you need to be there where they are. It is a proven fact that B2B business can be initiated through personal meetings on a trade shows. Also it is a proven fact that B2B business can be initiated through connections in social media. Now calculate which way is more cost effective!?
The graphic above shows a big difference between the up to hundred employees firms compared to the more than thousand employees firms. This could be that the smaller firms need to be more cost effective with their marketing than the larger ones. And therefore they use any creative way to get in touch with their target audience.
Here is the competitive advantage where small businesses can get market shares from the big ones but for the fraction of their costs.
Smaller businesses can increase their online activities through inbound marketing. An MIT Sloan Study found out that inbound marketing has a proven 62% less cost per lead and up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
Download the study here: ROI of HubSpot: An MIT & Babson Joint Study
Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.
With inbound marketing businesses earn their way to the customer, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.
Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.
Inbound marketing increases brand reach and recognition, makes a business stand out of their competition and increase your customers and sales.
Marketing tip: Small businesses should focus on lead generation online. The best way to attract target buyer persona is to produce, publish, distribute and market content on the web. This can be done through a corporate blog, eBooks, whitepapers, pictures, video, social media conversations, blog commenting, press releases and by building further digital content epitomized outposts like Squidoo.
—What do you think about B2B online lead generation?
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Very insightful study and provides a direction to SMEs. Particularly the companies which have limited marketing budget must embark upon this new approach to marketing. In today’s fast pace information age, when people are selective in reading the information, inbound marketing is an effective way to gauge the interest of the potential clients and the leads
Caveat Emptor: I am a consultant who works in the Inbound Marketing and Marketing Automation field. We call the combination of these two trends Inbound Marketing Automation. It’s a powerful new way to market. IMHO, the more traditional, or “outbound” approaches are no longer cost-effective. Cold calls are ignored, unsolicited emails go to spam buckets, trade show attendance is down…
Spending on the newer ways to generate leads- the Inbound ways like Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click adverts and Social Media is on the rise and predicted to each all an time high in allocations for 2012.
So yes, totally agree with all you say above. Don’t want to turn this comment into a spin for our services, but our site does offer a great deal of education material on how all this works, and how the combination of these can significantly increase company profitability.
Click link on the lhs and go to the resources area to learn more.
Hello Eric,
Scientia est potentia: I agree with you that Inbound Marketing and automation are on the rise. As Inbound Marketing generated leads are more cost effective by up to 62% per lead. Furthermore Inbound Marketing leads have an up to 55% higher conversion rate.
But PPC – pay per click is not the ultimate solution anymore. Content marketing has proven to have a lower CPL – cost per lead than PPC.
Also SEO – search engine optimization has changed in a wider dependence to social media and mobile activity.
You can find a free Inbound Marketing Professional Course here in our learning center.
HubSpot marketing automation solution: We are HubSpot Certified Partner. To learn more about the HubSpot marketing automation solution please go here.