It seems as if for more than two decades in the online marketing era, brand marketers engaged in generating and nurturing new leads have been getting it all wrong. They have been making mistakes which are costing their companies the opportunities to forge lucrative new relationships. According to recent studies by Lead Response Management, Inside Sales, The Marketing Donut, and Aberdeen Research, some widely held beliefs about the lead generation process are literally nothing more than misconceptions. Review these top ten most surprising lead generation statistics and get ready to change great big chunks of your current strategies.
1. Lead contact – The chances of making contact with a lead increases one hundred times (not percent, but times) if they are contacted within five minutes. If you’re waiting until the next day to contact a lead so that they’ll think you’re busy with other customers, you’re losing one hundred times your advantage. The same applies to triggered transactional emails. If there is a contact made on your sites, get that email to them pronto!

2. Lead qualification – Your odds of qualifying that lead are 21 times better if you contact them within five minutes as well. When you combine the factors of contact and qualification the statistics are very clear: You have to act quickly or not at all. So stop dawdling and get with the program!

3. Swift sales – Fifty percent of all the sales go to the vendor who is the first to respond to an enquiry. If you needed any more justification to be quick off the mark, this statistic should prove to be more than sufficient to get you off your butt and moving fast.

4. Delayed reactions – Fully 63 percent of all individuals who request information on your brand offerings are not going to buy anything from you for at least three months, while one out of five will take over a year to finally proceed to checkout. Patience is key as if you kiss off a prospect too early you might miss out on the close.

5. Multiple contacts – Only two percent of all closings are ever made on the very first contact and that rises by only one percent to three percent on the second, five percent on the third and surprisingly only to ten percent on the fourth contact. It might be wise to move your best prospects into your house with you to make sure that you close them!

6. Long-term commitment – The balance of the number of sales, fully 80 percent of them, are made anywhere between the fifth and twelfth contact with a prospect. Although this may seem inordinately long, the research does back up these rather surprising statistics.

7. Personalization – While we’re on the subject of very surprising statistics try this one on for size. While 74 percent of all online marketers state that personalization is critical for customer engagement, only 19 percent of all brands actually personalize their outreaches!

8. Social media reliance – A considerable 48 percent of all online users state that they rely on the brands’ social media presences when making a purchase decision and thus becoming a “formal lead.”

9. Social media ignoring – Unfortunately, online brands only respond to 30 percent of the feedback from their social media followers. This bizarre factor has created a complete disconnect between social media users’ expectations of communication with the brands, and the brands’ actual commitment to that communication. Almost half of all of online users rely on your brand’s social media activities but you’re ignoring 70 percent of them? No matter how you slice it that makes absolutely no sense.

10. Social media tough slog – In an age where social media marketing has become totally de rigeur, it is somewhat disheartening to learn that almost exactly half, or 49 percent of all online marketers state that marketing their brand to generate leads on social media is the single most difficult tactic that they can implement. More than almost any other marketing strategy, social media is challenging… to say the least!

These figures will certainly open many eyes across marketing departments, but the numbers don’t lie!