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Facebook was the dominant driver of site visits, at a majority 54% share, followed by Twitter (32%) and LinkedIn (14%). But, when it came to leads, Twitter was far and away the most important social media source, generating 82% share of leads, compared to just 9% each for Facebook and LinkedIn.

Twitter not only was best for generating leads, but it also showed the highest conversion rates. Compared to the 1.22% average for social media (which was below the 1.6% average for all site sources), Twitter had a 78% higher conversion rate (2.17%), easily outperforming LinkedIn (0.8%) and Facebook (0.74%). That’s despite LinkedIn having the highest engagement rate by pageviews per visit (2.5), and Twitter the least (1.5).

As a B2B marketer, your job is to diversify the lead generation offers available on your blog so they apply to these different personas. These offers will fall into two main categories.

If someone is visiting your site for the first time, it's likely they aren't ready for a ton of product-focused information. Instead, they probably want to learn more about your business and, more importantly, your expertise. The best way to convey industry expertise is through some type of premium content.

Warm leads need a different type of offer. They already know that you have expertise, possibly because they have read one of your premium content pieces or because they have already talked to a sales rep. These leads want more product-focused information.  They want detail, a discount or a free trail.

Research from Forrester, CSO Insights, Brian Carroll – as well as Marketo’s own research –demonstrates the ROI of lead nurturing. In particular, companies that excel at lead nurturing: Decrease the percent of marketing-generated leads that are ignored by sales (from as high as 80% to as low as 25%). Raise win rates on marketing-generated leads (7% points higher) and reduce “no decisions” (6% lower). Have more sales representatives that make quota (9% higher) and a shorter ramp up time for new reps (10% decrease).

Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, according to [pdf] an e-book released in February 2012 by HubSpot. 92% of of blog users who posted multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog, a figure that decreased to 66% for those who blogged monthly and 43% for those who posted less than monthly. Overall, 60% of the survey respondents indicated that they blog weekly, while 10% post daily and 30% either monthly or less.

By contrast, among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% of these respondents having acquired a customer through the professional network. Company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%) followed.

Facebook has generated leads for 73% of B2C marketers, ahead of Twitter (40%) and LinkedIn (12%), it takes second rank for B2B marketers. Of those, 44.6% say LinkedIn has been effective in generating lead flow, with Facebook in second (35.1%), and Twitter (31.6%) in third.

Suspects are looking for companies to share what they know as an organization — not what they sell. So the content marketer’s goal at this stage is to get content to spread from person to person in the hopes that the more people it reaches, the better the chance that it will reach a potential prospect.

content marketers to avoid using forms when communicating with Suspects, as anything that interrupts consumers’ ability to view your content is a surefire way to blunt its spread at this stage of the marketing game.

What information they want: In general, Prospects are looking for content that feeds their professional interests and provides a service, whether it be helping them solve a problem, giving them some targeted business tips, or arming them with information that can help them get buy-in from team decision-makers.

26% of average marketing budget is spent on content marketing, with 3.5 dollars spent on distribution for each dollar spent on creation.  Do the math and that means 5.8% of the average marketing budget is spent on creating content.

To put all this in perspective, license fees for marketing automation software are usually 1% to 2% of the total marketing budget.  In other words, content will cost several times more than software when most companies deploy a marketing automation system (and distribution costs will outweigh them both).

An SLA between Marketing and Sales is an agreement where Marketing promises to produce a certain quantity and quality of leads for Sales over a given time period. The SLA is tracked on a daily basis, typically in the form of a chart or graph that maps the progress against a cumulative goal

next time Sales complains (and if you’re on track), all you have to do is tell them to take a look at the SLA -- the proof is in the data!

In your SLA, you should get credit for the quantity, but also more importantly, the quality of the leads you hand over to Sales.

Persona I: The Methodical B2B Customer Methodical types need to be prepared and organized to act. How can your solution solve this problem? Provide hard evidence and superior service. Persona II: The Spontaneous B2B Customer Spontaneous types live in the moment. Why is your solution best to solve the problem now? Address immediate needs with relevant and credible options. Persona III: The Humanistic B2B Customer Humanistic types are usually slow to reach a decision and generally prefer the big picture. Who has used your solution to solve my problem? Offer testimonials and incentives. Persona IV: The Competitive B2B Customer Competitive types are goal-oriented and looking for methods to completing tasks. What can your solution do for me? Provide rational options, probabilities and challenges.

Though 88% of B2B companies say they understand their target audiences at least moderately well, they still struggle to translate that understanding into new business leads via their corporate websites, according to a new study by Demandbase and Focus.

Corporate websites are a critical channel for B2B companies. After personal connections and referrals (41%), websites are the leading source of leads (23%) among surveyed B2B professionals, outpacing email (14%), online advertising (7%), and social media (3%).

If you look at the data from the survey, you will see that marketers believe their website is the leading source of leads and that 80% of marketers believe they are NOT maximizing their efforts there.As I like to say:  “you got them into the store (aka website), now what?”  The next step for marketers who are doing the right things with inbound marketing, lead nurturing, and such as optimize conversion when they get them to the website.

I am shocked that in this day and age: 27% have 8 or more fields.

Ardath: In your opinion, what is the biggest reason that B2B websites fail to generate demand?Craig: There are two reasons.The first is the propensity for creating brochureware.   Many websites are still boring, corporate, sterile, etc.  In today’s world, content needs to be arresting and provide buyers with something they actually want to read.  As well, design and usability is very important to the user experience.The second is conversion, plain and simple.  You have to decide what you want your website visitors to do on a particular page, etc.  If it is to register for something, then optimize the experience for the registration.   Most websites are not the great at that.

  Social media participants contribute very little to conversations. Research from the Online Community Research Network shows that fewer than 10% of people in online communities ever say anything. And fewer than 2% take a leadership role in starting conversations. Therefore, if you want compelling and relevant content – it’s critical to have a content leader or practice who can think like a publisher and develop a strong editorial calendar.

  ITSMA research shows that 66% of buyers seek information themselves rather than waiting to hear from providers. They seek that information through search. 79% of C-level executives do at least three searches per day. They are more likely to encounter your content through search than through the social media channels themselves.

The bottom line: Organizations (and B2B marketers) need to focus on content, thought leadership and engaging B2B tech buyers in channels where they go to consume information.

Social media is about relationships, so it requires you to engage in two-way conversations and participate consistently. Social media is real time, so you need to be monitoring the conversations and taking action on them in real time. Social media enhances and amplifies other channels, so it cannot be used in a silo.

To generate demand from these conversations, you want the engine to identify those people who are potential buyers in the discover phase of their customer life-cycle so that you have already started a relationship with them and created brand preference when they enter the explore phase.