Online Lead Generation Effective But Not Used

Just read an article that I thought I would share. In a survey of 400 marketers early this year, despite it's importance for sales, less than half of the respondent's companies use the Internet to generate qualified leads.

According to e-consultancy and Clash-Media, the most effective methods of generating leads are all online but marketers aren't taking advantage of them. The survey also revealed that the most effective online lead generation methods were paid and natural search.

This jives with what we know - online is the easiest and most effective way to generate leads, as long as you can qualify them. Before, 'Internet leads' (if you even get any) were poor quality. But today with search and other tools, you can be REALLY effective in getting good leads from the most efficient and effective lead generation platform in the world that is accessible by 800 million users - the Web.

Offline Media Prompts Online Search

A new study by BIGresearch shows that over 47% of respondents are motivated to search online after seeing a print ad in a magazine. That jives with what we know about search behavior and actual search keywords results for our clients.

Although typing in the exact URL does NOT translate well from a print or TV ad, searching for the brand (or variations of it) does. We expect search engines to figure out what the website URL address is. A couple of things come out of this. The first is that search complements other marketing such as print ads, and the second is make sure your website is found under your brand keywords so that you get much more value out of your advertising. To top this off, the research goes on to say that many searchers go on to SHARE their search results, multiplying the effect of the advertising.

For B2C businesses such as retailers, an additional comment comes from BIGresearch in that retailers must realize and understand that online communities, through their content are able to distribute their findings with 'a trust and truth not even approximated by mass media', said Joe Pilotta.

Food for thought in the new (online) world order.

p.s. Another (likely useless) statistic - the global Internet population has grown another 10% last year. Interestingly, the comScore report said Canadians spent the most time online (39 hrs/week). Must be the cold...