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“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Anon.

New survey reveals the source of your best sales pipeline opportunities

A recent B2B SalesPulse survey conducted by OneSource among B2B sales professionals reveals some truly illuminating data:

By far the most striking conclusion of the survey, however, was the difference between the impact of social network marketing – the “blog/twitter sphere” – as perceived by the media pundits, and the street-level reality.

The good news is that 47% of respondents surveyed reported current sales up on last year, with just 11% reporting no change.

But while sales pipelines show some improvement, the actual time it takes to close a deal is getting longer. A hefty 59% percent of respondents said that current sales cycles were longer than last year. Just 16% reported shorter sales cycles.

When asked to rate their experiences of different lead generation sources on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = lowest; 5 = highest), sales professionals overwhelmingly rated outbound prospecting as the best source of qualified opportunities, at 3.8. This was followed by corporate websites on 2.9. Inbound calls, e-mail marketing and events and trade shows came next, both at 2.6, followed closely by social networking and media sites, at 2.5.  At the bottom end of the scale came direct mail and webinars, with 2.1 and 1.8 respectively.

When respondents were asked which social networking and media sites they rated most highly, LinkedIn came out on top by a wide margin. LinkedIn also had the highest growth, with nearly half of all respondents saying they are using LinkedIn more now than at the same time last year.  Surprisingly, given LinkedIn’s popularity, nearly a third of respondents said they are still not signed up!

After LinkedIn came blogs, Facebook and Twitter. YouTube came in a poor last. (Although I for one do not read too much into this, as webinar marketing is still in its infancy.  I predict it will continue to grow.) 

When respondents asked what company information they find most valuable to qualify inbound leads, the number one answer was location and geography, followed closely by revenue size and employee size. Company news and industry SIC codes tied for third. Executive profiles and assets were rated among the least important areas of information.

Now here’s the most interesting conclusion of the survey. Despite the sustained hype as to the impact of new media, outbound prospecting still comes out on top – and by a wide margin.

So while nobody could deny that there has been an exponential rise in inbound marketing to coincide with the advent of new media, outbound marketing is more than holding its own against all comers.

Just as the pundits predicted that figurative painting would die with the advent of photography, and that cinema would disappear to make way for television, so outbound marketing shows itself as a worthy survivor in the face of progress.  And it isn’t about to be displaced any time soon.

That’s not say that inbound hasn’t had an impact. Just five or six ago it’s unlikely that email and websites would even have registered as effective lead generation tools, let alone webinars and social networking. But now they’re all solid contenders, and the curve is set to continue.

For me, this all points to one obvious conclusion: don’t place all of your eggs in one basket.  Although prospective buyers are going online to research services and products, businesses aren’t necessarily seeing their inbound lead generation efforts translate into sales.  We still need the “push” of outbound to reinforce the inbound “pull”.  A balanced combination of both strategies with the emphasis on the latter is the clear way forward.

And finally…

The writer Isaac Bashevis Singer was once asked whether he believed in free will or predestination. “We have to believe in free will,” he replied. “We’ve got no choice.”

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and, as ever, your comments and ideas are very welcome. 

And always to a higher response!

Norman

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