A recent survey from Salesfusion and Demand Metric found that most small and mid-sized companies have lead generation processes in place, but few (less than 10%) think they’re highly effective. Over half (58%) say they don’t produce enough leads.

The survey of 200 businesses also indicates that the most common approaches include email marketing (78%), tradeshow or event marketing (73%), and content marketing (67%).

“Lead generation is quite often the greatest point of friction in the marketing and sales relationship, and a goal of our study was to understand what marketers are doing, and what kind of success they are having,” said Demand Metric Chief Analyst Jerry Rackley. “The marketing team experiences constant pressure to produce more and better leads, and when they do generate them, where they’re stored has much to do with overall process effectiveness. Almost 60 percent of organizations whose leads are stored in CRM or marketing automation systems report that their lead generation process is moderately or highly effective. Less than half of organizations that store their leads in spreadsheets, in-house databases, email folders or other places report this same level of process effectiveness. CRM and marketing automation systems provide marketing and sales with the tools needed to more effectively execute, measure and improve the lead generation process.”

“The study verified what we’ve been hearing,” said Salesfusion CEO Christian Nahas. “Marketers need an easier way to accurately identify leads as interested and qualified and they need to deliver those leads to their sales teams at the right time. Marketing professionals are being held increasingly more accountable for budgets and business impact. As the demand for data on marketers continues to increase, smarter tools and more accurate and easy-to-read data will also be increasingly important.”

Content marketing, based on the survey’s findings, is the lead generation tactic targeted for the greatest increase in investment (70%). Tradeshow and event marketing will see the biggest decrease in investment among these companies (40%).

Web forms were found to be the most common mechanism for capturing leads (73%), followed by data entry (66%). The most common lead storage repository is a CRM system (45%) followed by spreadsheets (17%).

According to the report, only 16% of those using and storing their leads in CRM or marketing automation systems say they have no standard for lead quality. 62% say their standard or definition is moderate to very effective.

Hat tip to Direct Marketing News

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