Lead Generation Statistics
Almost all businesses eventually need to engage in lead generation, which involves ‘luring in’ potential new clients and customers in order to convert them into paying customers in an increasing number of different ways.
In order to capture the interest of potential customers via effective lead generation, businesses must use unique content marketing, email, social media, and other marketing platforms.
How do the most successful marketers generate leads in 2022? And how do they convert “just looking” customers into “ready-to-buy” customers? What are their plans for 2023? Many of these questions can be answered by lead generation statistics, the most important – and actionable for 2023 – of which we’ll be covering here.
General Lead Generation Statistics
In their marketing campaigns, 50% of marketers place a high focus on lead generation.
The two most common marketing objectives are to increase sales and to increase brand recognition. Nevertheless, lead generation was cited as the primary focus by 50% of the marketers surveyed for HubSpot’s State of Marketing report.
On average, businesses generate 1,877 leads every month.
Four out of every five of those 1,877 leads are deemed marketing qualified leads, or MQLs. And while the majority of marketers track and accurately know how many leads they are bringing in, 12% of marketers claim they are unaware of the number of leads they are actually generating.
Across all industries, the average cost per lead is $198.44.
4% of businesses spend $1000 or more each lead, while 9% pay $10 or less. 18% of marketers are unaware of the expense associated with each lead.
Marketers were asked to list their top goal for the upcoming 12 months in the HubSpot report. Lead generation was noted by 34% of respondents, by far the most people. Lead generation outperformed raising brand recognition (19%), boosting customer satisfaction (22%), and closing more business (14%).
More leads are generated each month by IT and associated services than by any other sector.
In the IT and services industry, 3,660 leads are generated monthly on average. Additionally, they have the highest MQL rate (83%). Only 600 leads are produced by nonprofit organizations each month, which is by far the lowest lead generation rate.
A greater availability of accurate data, according to 39.5% of marketers, could boost their marketing initiatives and improve their lead generation campaigns.
Lead generation campaign results are improved, like other marketing objectives, when marketers can analyze data to determine what is effective. Increasing team size (36.6%) and budgets (35.1%) are two further areas where marketers believe lead generation campaign results could be improved.
95% of marketers think they are aware of the channel that generates the most leads for them.
27% of marketers that claim they can name the source of their most effective leads say organic search produces the most leads. Another efficient lead generation method is social networking, which is cited as a top source of viable leads by 1 in 5 marketers.
Lead Generation Statistics and Content
When targeted at consumers who are in the early phases of the buyer’s journey, content marketing often serves as the initial step in the lead generation process for brands across most industries. Here is how content marketers are generating leads in 2022 according to a variety of lead generation reports and lead generation statistics.
The use of content by content marketers to generate leads is 76% across all niches
Today’s marketers are aware that one of the best ways to produce inbound leads is through content. In the case of B2B marketing, that may be even more true. 85% of B2B marketers versus the 60% of B2C marketers use content to create leads.
One of content marketers' top three objectives is to generate leads.
Lead generation was identified by 36% of the 1,500 content marketers questioned for Semrush’s 2022 State of Content Marketing study as a crucial marketing objective. Increasing brand awareness (45%) and driving an increased number of new website visitors (37%) came before lead generation.
The biggest problem for content marketers is generating quality leads.
The problems faced by content marketers are numerous, ranging from developing material that connects with audiences to calculating the return on investment of their efforts. Lead generation tops the list of difficulties though, with 41% of content marketers citing it as one of their biggest concerns.
When it targets leads in the early stages of the buyer's journey, content marketing is most effective
Early-stage material that is intended to raise awareness and interest, according to 54% of content marketers, offers the most total value. Only 8% of marketers consider content geared toward “ready-to-buy” customers to be the most valuable.
The three material types that generate the most awareness and demand are podcasts, blogs and/or long form articles, and videos
Which content formats help convert leads from awareness to consideration the fastest? 77 percent of marketers believe that podcasts are the best option.
At 76%, blog posts and articles come in second, while 59% of respondents think that video is a useful tool. The bottom three types of content in terms of effectiveness? White papers, webinars, and case studies.
Email Lead Generation Statistics
In addition to lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead conversion, email marketing remains essential. The initial stage in lead generation is frequent email capture, which provides marketers with a list of potential consumers to whom they can send marketing messages.
An average of 21.5% of marketing emails are opened overall.
Retail has one of the lowest average open rates at 17.1%, while education has one of the highest average open rates at 28.5%. The shift to remote learning over the past two years may be the cause of education’s effective emails.
While click-to-open rates are declining year over year, open rates are increasing.
Are subject lines for marketing emails getting better? Over the past year, email open rates have soared 3.5 points to 21.5%. It’s another thing to get recipients of emails to click links. These figures have decreased by 3.6 points since last year. The change may be the result of better privacy protection.
Sending marketing emails on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday will have better results.
The benchmark study from Campaign Monitor shows how leads respond to emails on various days of the week. At 22%, Mondays had the highest open rate. Tuesdays had the greatest click-through rates (2.4%). Tuesdays and Wednesdays saw the highest click-to-open rates (10.8%).
At least once a day, 43% of internet customers open brand emails
A bit less than half of internet buyers regularly open retail emails.
That percentage rises to 72% when considering a weekly timeframe. Emails are being opened by consumers at a high rate but how frequently do they buy? 60% of customers claim to make at least one purchase per month as a result of reading a brand’s email
60% of 1,015 internet shoppers surveyed in 2022 claimed that email marketing influences at least one purchase per month. Only 10% of respondents claimed to make weekly purchases, while 22% say they never buy anything after receiving a marketing email.
Social Media Marketing and Lead Generation Statistics
Marketers increasingly rely on social media for lead generation because there are 4.65 billion active social media users worldwide. Brands, both B2B and B2C, are quite active on social media, and customers have developed an appreciation for this trend.
Over the previous five years, monthly Google searches for "social media marketing" have increased by 92%.
Social media marketing, according to 68% of marketers, has assisted them in generating more leads.
Lead generation can benefit greatly from social media. However, expertise also counts.
Sixty-two percent of marketers with five years of experience or more claim that social media aids in lead generation. Only 42% of marketers with less than a year’s worth of experience agree.
Lead generation is one in four social media marketers' key areas of focus for learning.
Over 2,000 social media marketers were polled for the Social Media Examiner’s 2022 Report. One of the topics that 25% of social media marketers said they wanted to learn more about was “lead creation.” “Increasing sales” was the only learning area that scored higher than lead generation.
47 percent of marketers want to know more about TikTok
Although TikTok has swept the globe in terms of user growth and user engagement, marketers are only now slowly catching up. Only 18% of people are currently using TikTok, but nearly half of social media marketers are planning to do so.
Over the last five years, "tiktok ads" has received 9,200% more Google searches.
The preference of 74% of social media users is to see 1-2 posts daily from brands they follow
Even though users prefer to see 1-2 posts per day, brands shouldn’t limit their posting to just 1-2 per day. Newer brands may need to post more frequently to become visible on social media because the algorithms that govern these platforms curate users’ feeds.
More than half of social media users appreciate brand postings that feature their goods or services.
When asked what kinds of social media content they enjoy reading, 51% of respondents said posts that feature a company’s goods and/or service offerings. Only 14% of respondents said they like content that could be considered ‘behind the scenes’, putting paid perhaps to a myth that has been perpetrated over the last several years that consumers respond to the latter type of content and are interested in seeing much more of it.
Lead Nurturing Statistics
One of the main marketing objectives is to find and qualify leads, but this is only half the battle. To transition leads from “interested” to “ready to buy,” businesses must nurture them. Sales teams try to turn leads into customers after they receive warm leads from marketing teams.
Form submissions are used for conversions by 84% of marketers.
The key to lead generation is converting visitors into leads and leads into sales. Today, internet submission forms are the most popular method of conversion. How do other approaches compare? A little under one-third (33.2%) of marketers use live chat, while slightly over half (50.3%) use phone calls for conversions.
41% of businesses have trouble following up with leads promptly.
Sales teams will need to react to qualified leads in a flash in 2023. Following up promptly is a huge difficulty for many businesses, especially when leads arrive outside of usual business hours.
To follow up with leads, 44% of sales representatives say they are too busy to do so effectively.
Sometimes it’s not how soon you follow up with leads, but how thoroughly you follow up. Too many leads are rolling in for almost half of sales representatives to manage. Only 25% of sales teams employ automated lead management tools, despite the fact that they are widely available.
The number one issue from sales teams managing incoming leads is poor lead quality.
In the lead conversion process, sales representatives and marketing departments collaborate to turn leads into sales. However, sales teams frequently voice their dissatisfaction with the leads they receive from marketing departments. Sales representatives complain about lead quality in 44% of cases, readiness to buy in 39% of cases, and contactability in 37% of cases.
Final Word
Generating fresh leads each month is essential for the growth and profitability of all organizations. And although some marketers have trouble with lead generation, almost all of them concur that it plays a significant role in their overall strategy.
Marketers are fusing content, email, and social media in 2022 to build lead-generation ecosystems that direct prospects who are prepared to buy to sales teams. The most successful marketers are those that can effectively track and modify their methods.
All of this should give you plenty to think about heading into 2023, and should you need help. Pearl Lemon Leads highly experienced – and very successful – lead generation teams will be more than happy to provide that help – from initial lead generation strategy brainstorming, current campaign reviews, content creation and deployment and much more. Contact us today to learn more.
