In June 2008, I joined a panel at the MarketingProfs BtoB Forum 2008 in Boston. The team, moderated by Roy Young, presented the highlights from the panel’s recent research with MarketingProfs on how B2B marketers were using online media. Contrary to popular wisdom that social media tools like blogs are best suited for engagement, 49% of those B2B marketers surveyed by MarketingProfs indicated that when using blogs, the goal was to generate leads.
Fast forward to today and my organization has just released a follow-up to the MarketingProfs research.
Our approach was to focus on how B2B marketers were leveraging new media for lead generation and what specific tools were being deployed in programs.
Our survey of almost 250 B2B marketers made a similar observation: 50% of those surveyed were using blogs for lead generation.
Online Lead Generation Tools by Segment
The first tier of online tools deployed by responders for lead generation was comprised of Web 1.0 tools such as email, webinars/webcasting and paid search. The second tier included blogs and RSS.
So how do marketers measure the impact of blogs and RSS and how can these tools be considered for lead generation?
Outside of this research, we have found that B2B marketers leverage blogging to boost their organic or natural search rankings. Higher rankings translate to more web inquiries and leads.
Although B2B marketers struggle with the complexity of tracking back leads to online media sources, both the MarketingProfs 2008 research and our newly released research confirms that blogs are a significant tool for lead generation.
I am a firm believer that all marketing should be a form of lead gen. And while it can often be difficult to measure the impact of new media, it is ever more becoming a necessary part of the marketing toolkit. As a B2B marketer, I use a great tool called HubSpot to help me track and measure my online efforts. And while I cannot measure the impact of a single tweet, I can pinpoint lead sources much more accurately and make more informed online marketing decisions.
We’re using blogs for both lead gen and SEO at Bizzuka. I find it interesting that blogging is being considered a lead gen tactic now, considering only a few years ago there was much disagreement over whether it could serve that function. (I opted on the positive side of the argument.)
I really like what Chris Baggott and the folks at Compendium Blogware are doing with their platform. Their view is that blogs are decidedly a lead gen/SEO tool.
@ Leigh – thanks for you feedback. Given the downturn, the need to quantify impact becomes even greater.
@ Paul – I agree. There are many studies that confirm that blogs and other Web 2.0 tools are being used for lead generation from such sources as the ANA and McKinsey. I talk about some of this research on my blog, if you need more details.
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