Demand generation marketing is often mistaken for lead generation. While lead gen is a core part of a successful demand gen campaign, a more central component of demand generation is the process of converting leads through your marketing funnel. Rather than just letting it happen passively, lead conversion is the process of actively identifying and segmenting leads through prioritization practices and focusing on moving them through the decision-making process.
Lead conversion can feel like an overwhelming task at times, as it’s sometimes out of your control. The following conversion metrics should help you get a better understanding of the entire process.
1. 61% of Marketers Rank Lead Generation as Their Biggest Challenge—Hubspot
While demand generation can provide a lot of success in the form of lead generation, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Finding the right leads from the right buyers is only a small portion of the lead gen process. You also have to identify various segments of your total addressable audience, how those segments perceive your solutions, and what you’ll need to do to start a conversation with your ideal customers.
2. 96% of Your Website Visitors Might Not Be Ready to Buy Yet—Marketo
Lead conversion often requires you to bring leads to your website, usually with the hopes of filling out a form on a landing page. A common misconception, however, is if a prospective customer visits a product page, they must be in the market to purchase. This statistic suggests that, although your website visitors aren’t ready to buy, they’re looking for more information. That’s why it’s so important that each landing page has its own form of utility. You don’t always have to offer a sales-meeting CTA. In fact, the alternative might be more valuable in the long run.
3. 54% of Marketers Say Increasing Engagement Rates Are Crucial to Converting Leads—Ascend2
Whether your leads are engaging with you through email, social, or content downloads, it’s important to keep a consistent stream of thought leadership in your marketing automation strategy. The more your prospects observe and take in your brand and products, the higher the chance they’ll reach out to you when they’re ready to buy.
4. 51% of Marketers Prioritize Lead Nurturing Segmentation When Building Campaigns—Ascend2
We get it: Lead generation is hard. You have to balance both product information and thought leadership, weaving the two into natural conversations. One way to streamline this process is to break down your database into various segments that align with your ideal customer profile. In doing this, you can find commonalities between accounts, their needs, and how you can customize your outreach to them.
5. The Median Landing Page Conversion Rate, for B2B Marketing, is 2.35%—Wordstream
This may seem like a dismal stat, but keep in mind this encompasses every visit to your landing pages. A good way to help increase your page conversions is to bolster your leads with product knowledge and trust equity before they get there. The landing page then acts as a reinforcement of ideas that the prospect is already thinking through, rather than a sales tool.
6. 85% of Consumers Are Looking For a Personalized Experience—Evergage
Personalization in marketing is a hot-button topic that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, and that’s probably for the better. It’s been proven customers are looking for experiences that cater to their needs, and businesses that adopt this mindset see higher lead conversions and ROI than those that don’t. When you build out your lead nurturing campaigns, keep in mind what needs or challenges those prospects are facing and how you can address them in both a creative and actionable way.
7. 26% of CMOs Stated They’re Looking to Increase Their Budget Spend Around Marketing Automation—Gartner
Even though budget cuts seem to be rampant across the board for many marketing departments, marketing automation is still a priority for companies. It’s easy to see why. Instead of demand generation marketers focusing on busy work, they can leave that to software and focus on strategy. Learning how to build custom campaigns in your marketing automation tool can help convert leads quicker, as you can plan out each interaction ahead of time.
8. Only 3% of the Market is Actively Looking to Make a Purchase—TechJury
One of the most important things to keep in mind as you nurture your leads is that, according to this statistic, the bulk of them are probably not ready to buy. As a B2B marketer, your role is to drive engagement with your potential buyers through brand awareness and thought leadership. Many marketers also feel like they need to be responsible for sales as well—that’s not the case. You can’t control who is in the market and when, but you can control how your buyers view your products. Creating campaigns with this in mind can really help drive a natural pipeline of lead conversions.
Taking the Next Steps with Converting Leads
Lead generation is hard. Converting those leads is even harder. DemandScience not only specializes in creating functional demand generation campaigns for our clients, but we also work on converting their leads into opportunities. Through DemandScience Convert, you can directly affect your pipeline through an SDR-as-a-Service platform designed to fuel your marketing and sales team’s growth.
If you’re interested in learning more, take a look at our product page. You’ll find helpful information about DemandScience Convert, what SDR-as-a-Service can do, and why we’re so passionate about it.
