B2B MArketing: Lead Generation to Sales Conversion

If you find that you’re often frustrated with client sales coming through your website, you should know that you’re not alone.  Especially if you’ve just recently made adjustments to your marketing campaign.  If you’re launching a new campaign or new outreach project to boost your B2B leads, you could be in for a long ride – however that long ride has an end.

A chart from Marketing Sherpa has come as a breath of fresh air, showing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for B2B lead generation > sales.  I know some B2B organizations, especially those that are realigning their marketing strategies for social media marketing, that are struggling (seemingly) with gaining traction.  This is forcing them to question the ROI of social media for marketing purposes, especially in the B2B channel.

This chart shows that almost a quarter of B2B sales in any given cycle can actually take up to 12 months (even longer).

An excerpt from Marketing Sherpa’s report:

“One of the most challenging obstacles to marketing is the time span from lead generation to sales conversion. These long sales cycles put pressure on marketers to streamline the lead nurturing process… We also wanted to know what percentage of leads at each stage of the pipeline were likely to advance to the next stage. We found that on average, nearly four in 10 leads move from initial inquiry to being sales-ready and the same ratio advance from sales-ready to qualified prospect.”

So if you’re sweating bullets about B2B marketing and trying to get some leads to convert that you picked up in social media, don’t.  They’ll come in time.  Just keep doing what you’re doing.  This chart serves as major encouragement for any B2B marketing efforts.  Just remember to keep your focus on nurturing the lead instead of trying to just turn a profit from it.

While this chart is aimed primarily at B2B, the same concept of lead cycles and lead nurturing can be applied to B2C marketing as well – the cycle is just much shorter depending on the product or service being offered.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Related posts:

1. The Secret To Sales… Without A Sales Pitch
2. Old Spice Guy Doubles Sales With YouTube Campaign
3. Top 7 Landing Page Conversion Killers
4. Refining your Ecommerce Site for Sales

Comments

Comments are closed.