B2B companies that use best-in-class B2B practices are generating, on average, 17% of all leads via their social media channels according to a new Aberdeen Group study. When you compare this to the general population of B2B companies that generate roughly 5% of leads from social media, you can see how this affordable marketing strategy can significantly out-perform your competitors.
In the Aberdeen Group Report, “b2B Social Meeting Marketing: Are We There Yet?”, the study identifies four performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class (the top 20% of aggregate performers) from the average industry and poorest performing Laggard organizations (middle 50% and bottom 30% respectively).
The Best-in-Class companies achieved the following performance metrics:
1. Average annual revenue growth of 20%, compared to 8% for average and –3% for Laggard firms.
2. Average 10% year over year improvement of marketing leads that resulted in closed sales, compared with 3% for the industry average and –1 for the Laggard firms.
3. A 44% of forecasted sales generated by marketing, compared with 27% for average and 7% for Laggards.
4. The Customer retention rate increased to an annual 73%, as compared to 27% for average and 7% for Laggard firms.
Of significance is the determination that overall, 84% of all surveyed B2B companies are using social marketing in some form. However, the Best-in-Class companies are generally more focused on using social media for lead-generation purposes and are more likely to integrate social marketing with their other core marketing channels and processes.
For more details on the study, read this excellent article by Marketing Profs.
