What lead sources generate the best ROI in terms of opportunities and deals? Of course this varies according to the industry and type of products or services your organization sells. But from a business to business perspective, here is some data that may be useful to support what you’re already doing or may give you new avenues to explore.
Implisit – a data intelligence and automation company, now owned by SalesForce analyzed pipelines of hundreds of companies to discover the channels that deliver the highest conversion rate. Here are some interesting insights:
- On average, 13% of leads convert to opportunities and the conversion rate from opportunity to deal is even lower — only 6% of opportunities convert to deals. If this holds true, a lot of leads may need to be generated to help sales meet their quarterly number.
- The best lead source is employee and customer referrals they convert to deals at a rate of 3.6%, higher than any other channel – this makes sense considering these channels are basically pre-qualified.
- The second and third best channels include the website which converts from lead to deal at a rate of 1.55% and social media at a rate of 1.47%. Have definitely seen websites generating opportunities and deals - these are folks coming to your organization saying I'm interested - so that makes sense. More surprising is the social media channels converting leads and deals. The implication is clear – if these numbers relate to your business – invest in your employee and customer referrals, website leads and social media.
- Among the worst performing channels according to the research are lead lists, events (not tradeshows) and email campaigns with less than 0.1% lead to deal conversion rate. Less than 20% of company events, lead lists, and partner referrals end up as closed-won. This may surprise many organizations that invest huge sums in these tactics. Tradeshows by the way had a lead to opportunity conversion rate of 12.4% and a lead to deal conversion rate of 4.4% - this will help soothe the fears of many marketers spending lots of money on these efforts.
- Webinars have the third-highest conversion rate from lead to opportunity (17.8%); however, it has one of the lowest conversion rates from opportunity to deal (only 2.5%).
The conclusion from the sales benchmark research was that “closing a deal is as much about where the lead came from as it is about salesmanship”. How does this compare to your organization? What lead sources produce the best ROI and which are a waste of funds?
