Online marketing efforts generate the best-quality leads in B2B demand generation, according to a benchmark report from Software Advice’s Marketing Mentor service.
The software comparison site recently published its latest findings following a survey of 155 firms in technology, marketing, healthcare and other disciplines.
They found two different online marketing methods top the table when it comes to the quality of leads generated.
Out in front is email marketing, which 40% of those who carried out email marketing in-house said creates high-quality leads.
Close behind, in second place, is SEO, which generates high-quality B2B leads in about 36% of cases, and low-quality leads in just 16% of instances.
The figures show that the two techniques outperform all others on every measure, with more high-quality leads and fewer low-quality leads.
They also performed well in terms of perceived cost, ranking second and third respectively behind non-ad social media marketing as the three techniques with the highest proportion of low-cost lead generation, and the lowest proportion of high cost per lead.
Social media ads ranked in fourth place in terms of cost per lead, while offline methods such as trade show appearances and print advertising ranked worst of all with fewer than 10% of leads generated in those ways considered to be low-cost.
