123 eGuides

1 Minute Advice: SEO, Social Media Gain Importance as Lead Channels

Despite varying opinions about the efficiency of SEO and social media, both of these "inbound" marketing methods seem to be increasingly favored by companies for lead generation. According to the 2013 "State of Inbound Marketing Report," published by HubSpot, 21 percent of companies say social media has grown more important as a lead source over the past six months, with 16 percent saying the same about SEO. The report also indicates that 15 percent of companies say SEO delivers "above-average" sales conversions.

According to the report, Facebook is the top lead generation channel: 52 percent of companies' leads have been sourced from Facebook in 2013, followed by 43 percent of leads from LinkedIn and 43 percent from company blogs.

An even more interesting statistic might be website conversion rates. Companies that utilize inbound marketing see an average website conversion of 12 percent -- double the website conversion of companies not using inbound marketing.

According to HubSpot, inbound marketing capitalizes "on the way consumers make buying decisions today. Inbound marketers understand that people value personalized, relevant content and connections -- not interruptive messages -- at every stage of the marketing funnel." Inbound marketing generally includes the use of SEO, social media, blogging, email, and websites.

1 Minute Advice: "On-demand Marketing"

Want to know where marketing is really headed? Take a look into the future with McKinsey & Company as they explore what they refer to as "on-demand marketing." In a predictive article for McKinsey Quarterly, Peter Dahlstrom and David Edelman suggest that there will be four emerging areas of consumer demands in the next several years:

1. Now: "Consumers will want to interact anywhere at any time."
2. Can I: "They will want to do truly new things."
3. For me: "They will expect all data stored about them to be targeted precisely to their needs or used to personalize what they experience."
4. Simply: "They will expect all interactions to be easy."

Dahlstrom and Edelman write that "most of the technologies needed to make this scenario happen are available now." They suggest companies that want to take advantage of on-demand marketing need "three distinct data lenses" --

1. Telescope: "A clear view of the broad trends in your market, category, and brand is essential."
2. Binoculars: "...companies will need to push every customer-facing function to work together and form an integrated view of consumer decision journeys. "
3. Microscope: "...few marketers (or even line executives) have stepped back and pulled their teams together to work through the scenarios and customer-data models they will now need to build."

 Fascinating insights from a renowned consulting firm. Are you ready for "on-demand marketing"?