The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. – Peter Drucker

Lead generation is the action and process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business’s products or services. If a business exists, as Peter Drucker says, to create and keep a customer, then effective lead generation is a going to play a primary role.

But there is a lot of fact vs fiction about what works and doesn’t with lead generation.

To clear up the confusion, here are 10 myth vs realities about effective lead generation.

MYTHS

1. LEADS ARE WILLING TO BUY: MYTH. 73% of all B2B leads are not sales-ready and approximately 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy. The easiest way to lose leads is to come on too fast and too strong with a sales pitch.
2. COLD CALLING IS ONE OF THE TOP LEAD GENERATION TECHNIQUES: MYTH. The three most common lead generation strategies are: email marketing (78%), event marketing (73%) and content marketing. (67%). That’s because, when done right, these strategies offer value to a prospect and provide a means for them to get to know something about you. They also cost less than paying someone to call and  potentially scare people away.
3. NEW LEADS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN RETURNING LEADS: MYTHS. There is a common misconception among many business professionals that more customers are better. In actuality, returning customers are who you should be focusing your attention for effective lead generation if you want your business to be more profitable. According to research, they’re up to 60-70% easier to sell to than new customers, and they’re worth around 10 times their first transaction. Even more convincing, studies show that just a 5% increase in customer retention can boost a business’s profits by 95%.
4. COST PER LEAD IS A KEY METRIC: MYTH. Marketing departments often work with cost per lead in mind, but should focus on cost per acquisition, cost per up-selling the customer and cost per lifetime value of a customer. Instead of a hyperfocus on the cost per lead of a campaign, consider a formula that measures the true return of your efforts. For example, if you work thinking your best close rate is $50 per lead, you might be overlooking $1,000-per-lead opportunities that close at 80% and are worth 50 times per customer.
5. FORMS WITH MULTIPLE FIELDS ARE A NECESSITY FOR LEAD CAPTURE: MYTH. One of the biggest assumptions in lead generation is thinking that it is always helpful to make form fields necessary to fill out for potential customers. The reality is, excessive contact forms or modal windows often just annoy them, and they’ll feel as though they’re giving out too much information for something they’re not sure they want.

REALITIES

1. HIGH QUALITY LEADS DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH: REALITY. 93% of B2B buyers begin with an online search. 70% of B2B buyers use three or more channels when researching a potential purchase. A lead worth pursuing probably already knows something about your company. Treat them with respect for being a smart buyer.
2. CONTENT MARKETING IS THE MOST WIDELY USED LEAD GENERATION STRATEGY: REALITY. Content marketing is used for lead generation by 83% of B2B marketers.  93% of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies. 70% of B2B marketers claim that videos are more effective than other content when it comes to converting users to qualified leads. Content marketing provides an interactive platform with many forms of content that make it the most widely used vehicle for effective lead generation
3. SOCIAL MEDIA GENERATES BETTER BUYERS WITH HIGHER CONVERSION RATES: REALITY. Social media lead conversion rates are 13% higher than the average lead conversion rate. B2B buyers most active in using social media to support the buying process are more senior and have 84% bigger budgets, make 61% more purchase decisions, and have influence over a greater span of purchase decisions than those buyers who did not use social media to support their purchase process. Companies using social media for lead generation are likely to find leads that make better customers
4. NURTURED LEADS MAKE BETTER CUSTOMERS: REALITY. More than 79% of marketing leads don’t convert into sales with the lack of lead nurturing as the leading cause. Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. Make sure you nurture leads. It’s one of the best investments you can make in an effective lead generation program.
5. STRATEGIC LANDING PAGES ACQUIRE BETTER LEADS: REALITY. 68% of B2B businesses use strategic landing pages to acquire leads. Take the time to make the landing page your lead lands on welcoming, personalized and relevant. It’s likely to give you a better return.

Do these myths vs reality help you understand what makes lead generation more effective? Is your business looking to get started with an effective lead generation program?

Lead generation is the initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a business.

Effective lead generation is the life blood of any business. Search engine, social networks and websites are an excellent sources to begin the process of obtaining leads, but the process can be time consuming. So there are computer programs, databases and companies that specialize in obtaining leads for a fee that have created an industry of lead generation.  Ethics are an important consideration in developing a strategy for effective lead generation.

Effective lead generation is a vital ingredient to success. So your business succeeds, here is the ultimate guide to effective lead generation supported by 50 facts.

Create a plan that nurtures because consumer research, want recommendations and are wary

1. About 96% of website visitors are not ready to buy. (Source: Marketo)
2. 94% of B2B buyers conduct some type of research online before making a purchase. (Source: MarketingCharts)
3. 91% of B2B buyers never respond to an unsolicited inquiry. (Source: No More Cold Calling)
4. 88% of users leave the wrong information when filling out an online form. (Source: Mintigo)
5. 81% of consumers go online before making a major purchase and spend an average of 79 days gathering information (Source: Rothstein Tauber)
6. 80% of users said they would register for a whitepaper/ebook, while only 31% would register for a webinar. (Source: Nurture)
7. 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. An absence of lead nurturing is a major cause for this poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
8. 77% of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media. (Source: Nurture)
9. 73% of all B2B leads are not sales-ready. (Source:MarketingSherpa)
10. 68% of companies report struggling with lead generation. (Source: CSO Insights)
11. 63% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a site that has user testimonials. (Source: TruConversion)
12. 61% of customers read online reviews. (Source: TruConversion)
13. People are more likely to visit a B2B tech company’s website after seeing a tweet from the company, getting them one step closer to becoming a lead. (Source: KoMarketing Associates)

Set up a scorecard

1. The three most commonly used lead gen strategies are email marketing (78%), event marketing (73%), and content marketing (67%). (Source: Demand Metric Research Corporation)
2. The biggest challenge B2B marketers face in regards to lead generation is generating high-quality leads (61%). (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)
3. B2B marketers say that their greatest barriers to lead generation success are the lack of resources in staffing, budgeting, or time. (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)
4. 84% of companies that have a CRM have a lead scoring process in place to determine the quality of leads. (Source: Direct Marketing News)
5. 83% of B2B marketers use content marketing to achieve their lead generation goals. (Source: CMI)
6. 80% of B2B leads generated through social media are from LinkedIn. (Source: Oktopost)
7. 74% of marketers spend more than $50 per lead generated, with 5% spending more than $1,000. (Source: Mintigo)
8. 56% of B2B companies verify business leads before they are passed to sales. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
9. Over 50% of B2B marketers do not use direct mail to generate leads. (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)
10. Nearly 50% of B2B marketers’ lead gen budgets will increase this year, compared to 44% that will remain the same and 7% that will decrease. (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)
11. (Source: MarketingProfs)
12. 37% of B2B marketers are using marketing automation to generate leads.(Source: MarketingProfs)
13. 25% of companies don’t know their conversion rates. (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)
14. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research)

Measure and manage success; repeat what’s working

1. 81% of businesses have reported their blog as useful or critical to generating leads. (Source: HubSpot)
2. Marketers who blog are 13 times more likely to drive positive ROI than those who don’t. (Source: HubSpot)
3. Brands that publish 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month (Source: HubSpot)
4. Companies with over 40 landing pages get 12X more leads than those with 5 or less. (Source: HubSpot)
5. 77% of B2C companies have generated a lead from Facebook. (Source: Nurture)
6. 68% of B2B companies use landing pages to generate new leads for their sales teams. (Source: MarketingSherpa via HubSpot)
7. 65% of B2B companies have generated a lead from LinkedIn. (Source: Nurture)
8. 62% of companies say that social media has become an important source of leads. (Source: HubSpot)
9. Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, but costs 62% less. (Source: Demand Metric)
10. 60% of the marketers name lead generation as one of their top three priorities and 26% say its their highest priority. (Source: Nurture)
11. 60% of executives say that email is their best performing channel in regards to ROI. (Source: Business 2 Community
12. 57% of companies with a blog have generated a lead from it. (Source: Nurture)
13. 50% of leads are qualified, but not yet ready to buy. (Source: Gleanster Research)
14. Almost 50% of marketers say inbound marketing strategies are their primary source of leads, double that of outbound. (Source: HubSpot)
15. 49% of B2B marketers use sales lead quality to assess content marketing success. (Source: MarketingProfs)
16. 49% of B2B marketers site social media marketing as the most difficult lead generation tactic to execute. (Source: eMarketer)
17. 48% of B2B marketers state ‘Case studies’ as one of the three most effective content types, 25% state videos, 23% sate public speaking, 22% support white papers and 21% support seminars. (Source: Nurture)
18. 44% of B2B marketers have generated leads via LinkedIn, whereas only 39% have generated leads through Facebook and just 30% through Twitter. (Source: ReachForce)
19. Outsourced B2B lead generation is 43% more effective than in-house B2B lead generation. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
20. A/B testing can generate up to 40% more leads for B2B sites. (Source: HubSpot)
21. 35% of B2B marketers say that ‘live events’ are most effective for lead generation. (Source: Nurture)
22. Only about 25% of leads should advance to Sales. (Source: Gleanster Research)
23. 5% to 10% of qualified leads convert for the majority of marketers. (Source: B2B Technology Marketing Community)

For a comprehensive look at lead generation, here is A Complete Guide to Lead Generation from TruConversion.

If you need some creative ideas for effective lead generation, below is an infographic from Digital Marketing Philippines.

Do these facts help you with lead generation for your company?