Bop Design, a B2B agency headquartered in San Diego with locations around the U.S., has published the results of a recent survey on the state of B2B lead generation. In the article on the results of the survey, the agency shares various metrics on top reported lead generation sources, biggest challenges, lead nurturing activities, cross-selling approaches, and lead attribution strategies from B2B marketers.
According to Kara Jensen, creative director and co-founder of the B2B agency, the objective of the survey was to gain insight into the effective and ineffective lead generation strategies, methods, channels, and tools from various B2B marketers across a variety of industries. Jensen went on to state, “Smart B2B marketers have a major focus on lead generation tactics and activities, and for good reason, since it can either positively or negatively impact an organization’s revenue.”
“We focus primarily on marketing and branding for B2B firms, so our focus for the survey was exclusively B2B marketers. While there is some crossover between B2B and B2C marketing, we find that B2B marketing has many nuances in which B2C marketing and lead generation tactics just don’t work. We really wanted to peel back the layers and see what is happening in the B2B marketing and lead gen landscape,” said Jensen.
The survey, performed by Bop Design in April 2018, found that 80% of B2B marketers surveyed stated the top source of leads comes from word of mouth referrals and 70% of leads come directly from the company’s website. Bop Design also reported that the main challenge facing survey respondents was either not having enough time or being spread too thin (48% of respondents).
When asked about lead nurturing, the survey results show almost 80% of survey respondents use personalized calls or email campaigns as lead nurturing, while 64% listed email campaigns, and 49% pointed to content marketing.
Jeremy Durant, business principal and co-founder of Bop Design, found these results interesting, stating, “The survey showed that manual personalization continues to be the primary lead nurturing tool for B2B marketers. It’s interesting to see this especially as the marketing community, by and large, professes that everyone is working to automate lead generation. While marketing automation for personalization seems to work well for B2C marketing strategies, it’s not as effective for B2B marketing.”
The survey also asked B2B marketers about what lead channels are driving the best leads and how marketers are tracking and attributing those leads. The full re-cap on the survey results can be viewed on the Bop Design blog, The State of B2B Lead Generation in 2018.
