A recent case study presented by Marketing Sherpa shows that social media is a solid marketing tool for generating leads
The case study discusses 6 social media steps to help fill the sales funnel:
#1 Create a blog to start and join online conversation
#2 Establish an active Twitter account
#3 Create a LinkedIn Group (or Facebook page depending on your demographic)
#4 Modify your press release strategy for blogger coverage
#5 Promote social media channels on your company website and in email signatures
#6 Measure growth of social media accounts and web traffic
Results:
Results of the researched company’s social media campaign showed that there was a dramatic correlation between the use of social media channels and the growth of the company’s web traffic and leads.
After only six months, their campaign resulted in:
– 10,230 unique blog page views in Q3
– 280 Twitter followers
– 141 members of their LinkedIn Group
– 155% increase in unique web visitors
The most important thing to note is that the increased web traffic contributed to the majority of the teams leads.
Leads by source:
– 55% inbound web
– 23% trade shows
– 20.5% email
– 1.5% seminars
Marketing-influenced pipeline by source:
– 75% inbound web
– 17% email
– 4% seminars
– 4% trade shows
The following image shows the growth rate of new lead generation (blue), unique web visits (red), Twitter followers (yellow), LinkedIn group members (green) and blog views (purple) through Q1, Q2 and Q3.
Using social media as a marketing strategy is obviously still very young compared to more traditional marketing concepts however, as it evolves it is becoming less and less complicated to track its affect on your brand and your bottom line.
Social media is an incredible way to create strong relationships with hard-to-find prospects, on a limited budget – but don’t be fooled, it’s not easy and it’s a major commitment. To learn more about the exact strategies the company carried out to get these results, check out the full case study on MarketingSherpa.com.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Lead generation is one very, very overlooked opportunity for Social Media – but to confine it to “create content and use fans/followers/readers as leads” is just one way to get there.
I actually believe using monitoring – not to listen for someone talking about you, but to find people looking for a solution in your target market is a fantastic lead generation opportunity.
Suppose you are a web conferencing company with no name recognition but a superior product. Suppose you monitored for “webconference” or “web conference” and filtered the results for key words/phrases indicating need, frustration, or interest and treated those posts as leads.
Social Media is a great way to better align your business with your target market – and to find people in your target market who want/need what you’ve got – even if they have no idea you exist.
I completely agree Brian — That’s a great way to find people who have no idea that you exist. Thanks for your comment!