New Survey Says Leads Are Primary Goal for Content Marketers

"Leads Take Hold as the Primary Goal of Content Marketing" - 

From the Second Annual IMN Content Marketing Survey - Executive Report

The results of this just released survey indicate there is a notable shift in content-marketing types to focus more on lead generation. Lead generation was described as the most important goal of content marketing by 44%, compared to 16% last year.

From my perspective, this trend is a most healthy development. Anyone who is successful in generating quality leads by search engine marketing, for example, is deeply engaged in a form of content marketing. Search engines rank webpages by the relevancy of the content to the intention of the person running the search.

Get the content right on your webpages and quality leads will pour in.

Get the content wrong and your webpage will be a failure for lead generation... lonely, unproductive, and unnoticed by your potential customers.

Source: Marketing Charts
http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/interactive/content-marketing-efforts-are-becoming-more-focused-on-lead-gen-35554/attachment/imn-content-marketing-program-goals-2013-v-2012-aug2013/

Lead generation is one of the most important benefits marketing can contribute to an organization - - helping to feed the business with top-line revenue opportunities, ideally with attractive profit margins for the bottom-line.

As I've said here many times over the years: "Content is King".

Concise, precise, and relevant webpage content will help bring success with organic search engines and thus produce bonafide, high-value, leads.

Give Your Sales Teams What They Crave This Valentine's Day - Good Leads

Give your sales teams that special Valentine's Day gift they will love - good, actionable business leads with potential, profit, and success. 

Surprise your sales teams with a few real diamond-quality leads, not a lot of zirconium, and they'll be asking for more.

Cupid knew a thing or two about
effective sales and marketing. 

Staying focused on good lead generation helps validate you and the marketing campaigns you are responsible for in the eyes of Sales and Executive Management. Good lead generation, done well, helps feed the business with opportunities to grow market share, enter new markets, and raise top-line gross margins and profitability.

Though I have a business administration degree with a specialization in marketing, I've also spent many happy, productive, and lucrative years in B-to-B technical and industrial sales.

I know first-hand when my marketing departments were feeding me juicy leads laden with potential, or burdening me with near-worthless piles of junk. A worst-case scenario happens when jaded sales people ignore marketing leads because so many are a waste of time - resulting in high-value leads being lost or ignored.

As a consequence, it's been my top priority as a marketer to feed the best sales leads I can to the top of the sales funnel, as many as possible, by all marketing channels, by all possible means.

Quality B-to-B lead generation should be a Prime Directive for any marketer. Certainly other marketing priorities are important, such as branding and PR, but lead generation should be a central core value and a top priority.

The bottom line is that quality leads are better than quantity leads.

Search Engine Marketing is Industrial Strength Lead Generation (Or Should Be)

B-to-B Web Marketing Should Help Sales People Sell.

What Web Marketing can do for you in 2017.

Updated February 2017.