When it comes to lead generation, SEO is still at the top, way ahead of PPC (Pay Per Click) and SMM (Social Media marketing).
Both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) marketers have more faith on SEO while generating leads, sales and brand awareness.
This year (2012) marketers are even more dependent on SEO than a year ago, according to a survey conducted by WebMarketing123, an online agency based in California.
Total 500 U.S. marketers have participated in the survey including GE, Sony, Olympus, Phillips, IBM, Merck, FedEx and Cisco. Out of 500 survey respondents 2/3rd were B2B marketers and 1/3rd B2C. 32% of companies have 1,000 or more employees, and 23% with 50 or less employees.
SEO is Top Choice For Lead Generation
59% of B2B marketers and 49% B2C marketers have told SEO is the top lead generation for their companies. Both PPC and Social Media are way behind SEO. B2B marketers have even more faith on Social Media (21%) than PPC (20%).
1. For B2B, lead generation is the top objective, and SEO is twice as effective as PPC or SMM for this purpose.
2. For B2C, boosting awareness and reputation of their brands and products has doubled in importance since 2011, overtaking online sales as the top objective for digital marketing.
3. Budgets: 90% of marketers will increase or maintain spending on SEO, PPC, and SMM.
4. Still doing SEO in-house? Marketers using an agency are twice as likely to be highly satisfied with their campaign performance.
5. PPC: Only a quarter of marketers surveyed are highly satisfied with the performance of campaigns managed internally, compared to one-third who work with agencies.
6. Follow the Money: 9 out of 10 digital marketers are spending money on Social Media, and 8 out of 10 have reported leads or sales from their efforts.
7. B2C Marketers Discover LinkedIn: The number of B2C marketers generating leads or sales via LinkedIn has increased 75% since last year, while the number reporting sales from Facebook has declined nearly 20%.
About Nandita B.
My name is Nandita B, and I’m a SEO practitioner and part-time blogger. My sheer passion for sharing knowledge a webmaster needs drove me to create “A Webmaster’s Magazine” called SEOHour.com
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Thanks Nandita for writing this post. I agree with you that seo is still on the top and i think it will be.
Lionel recently posted…Programming Microsoft’s Clouds: Windows Azure and Office 365
Hi Lionel,
Rules come and rules go. Today it’s Google, tomorrow it may be Froogle. But, SEO will be unstoppable, till the end of the web.
Thanks for stopping by.
I am not very much surprised! SEO is cheap and PPC can be expensive. Honestly, conversion from paid search is much lower compared to organic.
Carl recently posted…Miscelleana Rhinehart added a new comment in How Many Rounds of Webdesign are Needed?
Hi Carl,
I’m fully agreed. Organic traffic is natural, you can call it Organic PPC also, and the conversion rate is much better than paid search.
Thanks.
Hey,
I totally agree with you that SEO is the best choice for people for doing marketing.
Thanks,
Mohammad
Mohammad recently posted…Security Solutions
Hi Mohammad,
Thanks for liking the post and sharing your thoughts.
As you stated is true. Also recently i read article that google will definitely take away seo and will be more on paid results. Where the stats shows that 48% of clicks in the results page for only paid results, only 8% for organic results, So soon all the b2b and b2c marketers will move on to PPC.
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