Talking to people works, according to results from Ifbyphone’s “State of Marketing Measurement: Survey Report” [download page]. Asked to rate various marketing tools for their effectiveness in generating sales leads, respondents ranked inbound phone calls highest, with a rating average of 3.4 on an 8-point scale (where 1 represents the highest potential). In-person visits were virtually on par with inbound phone calls, with a rating average of 3.48.
It’s not surprising to see in-person visits rated so highly: in-person events have been rated most effective by B2B content marketers, and small businesses also find them to be their most effective interactions. That in-person events and inbound phone calls clearly occupy the top positions in the Ifbyphone survey suggests simply that conversations are an effective way of generating leads.
In the next tier of effectiveness are email inquiries (4.48), paid search clicks/website visits (4.79), and web forms/report downloads (4.8), while occupying the bottom rungs are webinar attendance (5.29), instant messaging requests (5.42) and social media engagement (also at 5.42).
It’s interesting to see social media at the bottom of the rankings. A just-released report from HubSpot found inbound marketers touting social media for its below-average cost-per-lead and above-average sales conversions. Even so, an earlier survey of B2B marketers by Software Advice found them giving social media a middling grade for lead quality and quantity, behind other channels such as email marketing, telemarketing and trade shows and events.
About the Data: The “Ifbyphone 2013 State of Marketing Measurement Survey” was conducted online by Ifbyphone between February 19 and March 8, 2013 with more than 400 respondents across the U.S. who are responsible for marketing within their company. This is the second in a series of annual surveys conducted by Ifbyphone to identify the emerging trends and issues in marketing measurement.
