New Marketing Report: B2B Lead Generation Trends 2013

Finally, the new 2013 B2B Lead Generation Report is available! (Download it here: http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2-b-lead-generation-report-2013)

The B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn conducted the 2013 lead generation survey to better understand how B2B marketers are adjusting to new challenges, and to identify new trends and best practices. The results are in.

Here are the Top-5 Trends in B2B Lead Generation (for more details download the report):

1. The number one challenge for B2B marketers: Generating high quality leads.
2. The most effective lead generation tactics used by marketers: Company website, email marketing and SEO.
3. The greatest barrier to lead generation success is lack of resources: Staff, budget and time.
4. B2B marketers’ top metrics to measure marketing ROI: Cost per lead, revenue and lead volume.
5. The secret to B2B email success: Provide compelling content for each stage in the buying process to move buyers from first touch to purchase.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!

And many thanks to the co-sponsors of the B2B Lead Generation Report:

IDG Enterprise | http://www.idgenterprise.com 
IDG Enterprise brings together the unique brands (Computerworld, InfoWorld, Network World, CIO, DEMO, CSO, CIO Executive Council, ITworld, CFOworld and CITEworld) to serve the information needs of our IT and security-focused audiences. By leveraging the strengths of each individual brand, while simultaneously harnessing their collective reach and audience affinity, we provide market leadership and media best practices for our marketing customers to engage their customers across our portfolio.

Eloqua | http://www.eloqua.com 
Eloqua (NASDAQ: ELOQ) is the marketing system of record for modern marketers. The company’s cloud software, professional services and education programs provide marketers with the technology and expertise needed to help marketing drive revenue. More than 100,000 global users from companies both large and small, rely on the marketing automation power of Eloqua to improve demand generation and lead management while driving more qualified leads. Eloqua’s customers include AON, Dow Jones, ADP, Fidelity, Polycom, and National Instruments.

DiscoverOrg | http://www.discoverorg.com 
DiscoverOrg is the leading IT marketing tool used by the top IT vendors targeting the IT departments of Fortune Ranked, Mid-Market, and SMB companies in North America. Offered in the form of a constantly refreshed database, DiscoverOrg maps out the IT Org Charts of 15,000 companies complete with verified email addresses, direct dial phone numbers, reporting structure, IT project updates and technology install base.

Optify | http://www.optify.net 
Optify is a simple digital marketing software suite and the industry standard for agency marketers. Our complete cloud-based digital marketing platform eliminates the need for standalone tools and empowers agencies to easily create and manage demand generation programs across multiple websites, nurture and score the hottest prospects, prioritize the highest performing programs and streamline co-branded reporting of client results - all from one login.

Strand Marketing | http://www.strandmarketing.com 
Strand is an award-winning, strategic marketing and advertising agency focused on the unique needs of growth-oriented high tech companies. Adept at building integrated inbound and outbound solutions, Strand’s strength is aligning strategy with creative content and Web technology to create engaging lead-generation and brand-building campaigns. They’re located North of Boston in Newburyport, MA.

Take the 2013 Lead Generation Survey and Receive Free Report

Our 40,000+ member B2B technology marketing community on LinkedIn is conducting a lead generation survey to better understand how B2B marketers are adjusting to new challenges around lead gen, and to identify new trends and best practices for 2013.

Please follow this link to take the 5-minute survey now: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B2B_LeadGen_Survey_2013

As a survey participant, you will receive an exclusive, free copy of the survey report before it is published to a broader audience. The published survey report will contain the critical data points and trends for busy B2B marketing professionals to inform your 2013 marketing plans, campaigns and budget allocations.

Thank you for participating in the survey!

PS: Many thanks to the co-sponsors of the survey:

IDG Enterprise (http://www.idgenterprise.com) | Eloqua (http://www.eloqua.com) | DiscoverOrg (http://www.discoverorg.com) | Strand Marketing (http://www.strandmarketing.com) | Optify (http://www.optify.net)

New Report: B2B Content Marketing Trends

The new report "B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012" is now available on Slideshare. Be one of the first marketers to share the brand new report with your friends and colleagues via Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook (just go to Slideshare and use the social sharing feature)!

Earlier this year, we conducted our annual B2B content marketing survey with the 30,000+ members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn to learn more about the latest trends in content marketing.

Here is a quick summary of the most important trends we found (more):

The Top-5 Trends in Content Marketing

1. Content marketing is expanding dramatically in terms of tactics, forms and volume of content
- 84 percent of marketers say content production is on the rise
- Over half of the participants are using 10 or more formats and tactics that they deem “effective”
- These same respondents are spreading content creation across 6 different functional roles

2. Content is at the heart of B2B marketers top 3 goals—lead generation, market education and brand awareness

3. The fastest growing content format is Infographics, whose use increased 1.5x from last year

4. The biggest challenge for marketers is time and bandwidth to create content
- 94 percent of B2B marketers create new content from scratch

5. Most B2B marketers are trying to measure content engagement
- Web traffic, views & downloads and lead quantity & quality are the top 3 measurements

For more details, download the full report "B2B Content Marketing Trends 2012".

We would also like to thank our sponsors for supporting the B2B Content Marketing Report:

IDG Enterprise | NetProspex | Optify | Maximizer Software | Solution Publishing

Thank you!

Today's Most Popular Content Marketing Tactics

Here is another sneak preview of the new B2B Content Marketing Report that will be released later this month. We asked over 30,000 members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn about their most popular content marketing tactics.

Here are the results (click to enlarge):

Leading the ranking are case studies (62 percent) followed by white papers / ebooks (61 percent) and press releases (58 percent). In contrast, the least commonly used content marketing tactics are advertorials (11 percent), community management & threading (12 percent), and virtual events (18 percent).

Survey Result: The Top-3 Goals of Content Marketing

Last month, we asked over 30,000 members of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn about content marketing. The results are in. Here is the first in our series of sneak previews of the survey results (the complete report will be available shortly). The first survey question was "What are your top-3 goals for content marketing?" and here is what 727 marketers say:

#1 Lead Generation
With 68 percent of responses, the most mentioned goal for content marketing is lead generation. This is up from 62 percent in last year's survey. No major surprises here considering that content marketing has emerged as a critical B2B strategy to drive inbound lead generation (in response to outbound B2B tactics becoming increasingly ineffective). In other words, lead generation is the ultimate promise of content marketing. 

#2 Thought Leadership & Market Education
The next highest ranked content marketing goal is thought leadership and market education with 50 percent of responses (up from 37 percent in last year's survey). This pattern is also consistent with the promise of content marketing as a strategy to educate and influence buyer behavior in the vendor's favor.

#3 Brand Awareness
Brand awareness, with 39 percent of responses (up from 34 percent last year), has replaced last year's number three content marketing goal, lead nurturing.

See the chart for the complete ranking - and stay tuned for the next sneak preview of the content marketing survey results.