Marketers failing to use online for lead generation

A new study by Clash-Media and e-consultancy has revealed that that almost half of internet marketers fail to use the internet to generate leads.

by Helen Leggatt

Despite the web being a key tool for lead generation, whether converted on- or offline, 47 percent of online businesses surveyed did not fully utilise the internet to generate B2C leads. This is one of the key findings from the “Online Lead Generation Report” which found that all of the most effective methods of lead generation were online. Four hundred marketers were surveyed for the report earlier this year.

Lead generation is “a way of obtaining measurable and cost effective results, ensuring that businesses have access to consumers with an interest in their product or service," claimed Simon Wajcenberg, Clash-Media’s chief executive.

Despite many online marketers (82 percent) seeing online lead generation as an area of growth, just 44 percent are effectively exploiting online lead generation as a way of growing their B2C business.

Other key report findings were:

- The methods most likely to be used by respondents to generate leads online were natural search (78 percent), paid search (72 percent) and email marketing using in-house lists (72 percent).

- Paid search gets the biggest share of online lead generation budgets (28 percent).

- Three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) working for multi-channel organisations said that their companies are generating leads online with the intention of converting them offline.

- The most popular method of offline lead generation was via the press (61 percent) followed by direct mail/postal data (51 percent).