Benchmark study of B2B lead management practices

Silverpop
From First Click to Lifetime Customer

STUD Y

How Do
You Score?
Silverpop benchmark study
of lead-management practices

Engagement Marketing Solutions

Engagement Marketing Solutions SURVEY
STUDY

HOW DO YOU SCORE?
Silverpop benchmark study
of lead-management practices

W hat happens to the leads your marketing department generates from initiatives
such as white-paper downloads, referrals and trade-show business-card drops?

According to research firm MarketingSherpa, 12.5 percent are genuine leads, ready or
willing to buy and get moved into the sales cycle, while 17.5 percent get discarded right
away because they clearly didn’t qualify or couldn’t be verified.

The other 70 percent remain in limbo; as prospects, they may not qualify immediately for a follow-up sales call, but there’s nothing
that would send them to the discard pile, either. They are, however, a great opportunity for the marketing team to deploy an
automated lead-nurturing program, which uses timed or triggered messages to engage prospects and help move each one to a
sales-ready state.

Study Objectives
Silverpop researchers sought to:

• Uncover lead-management trends from across Silverpop ‘s Engage B2B clients
• Provide insight to marketers about the use of single-message vs. drip campaigns, lead nurturing and marketing automation
• Furnish benchmark data—so B2B marketers can see how they compare to others

To measure the impact lead-nurturing programs have on the sales process, Silverpop analyzed six months of data from 250 B2B
clients using its Engage B2B. Industries represented in the study included technology, publishing, financial services and professional
services.

Key Questions for the Study
When planning the study, we identified several questions we hoped to answer or gain further insight into, including:

• What is the average database size and lead growth rate?
• What are the overall response rates to emails sent as part of a lead-nurturing program?
• Is there a significant difference between drip campaigns and single-message campaigns?
• How many touches does it take, on average, to score a “win”?
• What can we learn from the opt-in/lead-qualifying forms?
• What is the average number of fields used in a form?
• Does the number of fields, number of required fields or average time to complete the form have an impact on completion rates?

www.silverpop.com/b2b 1-866-SILVPOP (745-8767) © 2009 Copyright Silverpop. All rights reserved. 2

STUDY

Survey Findings
Database Size and Growth
DATABASE SIZE AND GROWTH
Q1 Q2
Under 10K- Under 10K-
Total 50K+ Total 50K+
10K 49,999 10K 49,999
Average DB Size 46,810 2,813 20,996 128,807 56,116 3,635 26,283 155,528
Average Growth 10,446 1,007 5,620 27,303 9,201 958 4,736 24,593
Average Growth Rate 38.0% 49.5% 32.2% 29.4% 32.8% 42.2% 30.9% 26.9%

Analysis: The typical B2B database is growing at a monthly rate equivalent to about 5 percent to 10 percent.

Other statistics:
• Average database size: +/- 50,000 range
• Median database size: Quarter 1, 2008 = 16,700; Quarter 2, 2008 = 21,000
• Quarterly growth range: 1 - 160 percent
• Median overall growth rate: Quarter 1, 2008 = 21 percent; Quarter 2, 2008 = 16 percent

Key takeaway for marketers: Use this information to benchmark your company’s database growth rate. While growth
rates obviously can vary widely based on size and goals, an average-sized database that isn’t growing at least 5 percent
per month is probably underperforming.

Email Nurturing
EMAIL RESPONSE RATES - DRIP CAMPAIGNS
Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
Total Top 25% Total Top 25%
25% 25%
Open Rate 33.3% 48.5% 30.7% 32.4% 51.0% 25.9%
EMAIL RESPONSE RATES - SINGLE CAMPAIGNS
Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Open Rate 19.6% 27.7% 14.9% 18.7% 27.2% 14.7%

Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Click-Through Rate 10.1% 26.7% 0.4% 10.0% 28.0% 0.6%
Click-To-Open Rate 27.9% 55.4% 4.4% 25.8% 53.5% 4.2%
Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Click-To-Open Rate 14.3% 32.2% 2.9% 13.8% 30.2% 2.6%


STUDY

Analysis: Drip campaign response rates consistently outperformed single-message campaigns, often 2-to-1 and even 3-to-
1. Surprisingly, the lowest-performing drip campaigns outperformed almost all of even the best-performing single-message
campaigns.

Drip campaigns generated open rates that were consistently nearly double those of single-message campaigns. Also, drip
campaigns consistently generated click-through rates that were three times those of single-message campaigns.

Key takeaway for marketers: These results demonstrate pretty clearly how well drip campaigns—even those that don’t
perform in the top 25 percent—will engage prospects and outperform single-message campaigns. This can be a powerful
argument when you need to sell your top management on moving away from the single-message approach and the potential
need for additional resources.

Form Completion
FORM COMPLETION RATES - NEW LEADS
Q1 Q2
Average Bottom Average Bottom
Top 25% Top 25%
of Total 25% of Total 25%
Average completion rate 33.7% 54.0% 12.9% 34.1% 60.5% 10.3%
Average total fields 11.5 10.9 12.7 10.9 10.7 11.1
Average required fields 8.1 8.3 6.8 7.9 7.7 8.2
Average percentage #
72.7% 76.2% 57.2% 77.1% 77.0% 76.6%
required fields
Time to complete: % of
100% 81.0% 109% 100% 87.9% 112.8%
average

FORM COMPLETION RATES - UPDATES
Q1 Q2
Average Bottom Average Bottom
Top 25% Top 25%
of Total 25% of Total 25%
Average completion rate 63.7% 82.7% 42.1% 62.5% 80.8% 40.4%
Average total fields 9.1 5.5 10.8 9.4 7.7 8.2
Average required fields 7.2 4.9 8.4 7.2 6.9 6.9
Average percentage #
80.6% 90.6% 76.3% 81.9% 83.4% 84.8%
required fields
Time to complete: % of
100% 81.0% 108.8% 100% 94.9% 96.0%
average
Analysis: Time to fill out a form was a key factor in completion rates for both new leads and those who previously had
completed a more basic form and were given a more detailed one to enable the marketer to gather further information.
The forms that were able to be completed quickly were most likely to be finished, while those that took longer were more
often abandoned midway through. However, the number or percentage of required fields appeared to have little impact on
completion rate.

The study found that “update” forms were completed at a rate 20 percent to 25 percent higher than new-lead forms. Update
forms often require fewer fields be filled because marketers are populating fields with existing data. Prepopulating forms
saves people time and, when done effectively, reinforces a positive relationship with the prospect.


STUDY

Additionally, higher completion rates of update forms most likely occurred because prospects recognized the relationships they
had already established with the company and the time they’d already spend providing information.

Key takeaway for marketers: For new lead-capture forms, there doesn’t appear to be a magic number of optimum form fields.
But we believe there is an optimum number or range for each company. Obviously, fewer required fields generally will produce
a higher completion rate, but you need to balance that against gathering information you need to begin qualifying or nurturing
leads.
The study results do appear to suggest that the time to complete a form may be more important than the number of fields.
Therefore, make sure your form pages are simple, clear and brief. The form fields should be designed and written so they can be
completed without any hesitation.

For update forms, consider incorporating prepopulated fields to speed completion.

The following best practices can help you sharpen your qualification program, weeding out marginal prospects while engaging
hot leads and moving them quickly to your sales team:

• Standardize your lead-capture questions, including only those that can help you quickly identify hot prospects to be moved
on to sales or those in need of nurturing. Avoid open-ended questions; give users drop-down menus that define choices and
allow you to evaluate leads more uniformly.
• Use forms that both populate automatically with the information your prospects have already given you and provide new
fields for your next round of information-collecting. This reduces the time a returning prospect has to spend entering infor-
mation and allows you to use fewer fields in your update forms.
• Allow hand-raisers who indicate on the form that they’re ready for a demo or a sales call to bypass the rest of your lead-
nurturing process and move directly over to sales. Customers who receive a sales call within hours of indicating they’re
ready to talk will be much more impressed with your program than if they sit for days without a contact.
• To provide a good customer experience, progressively gather more information over time, rather than forcing everyone to fill
out a long list of questions early on in the relationship.

Touches/Contacts Before a Customer Win
AVERAGE TOUCHES - WINS
Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Average Touches Per Month 1.8 3.0 1.0 2.7 4.3 1.1

Analysis: High performers (as measured by click-through rates) “touch” leads more frequently—at least three to four times each
month—compared to an average one touch monthly in lower-performing programs. We also found high performers send more
frequently to fewer people in small batches of relevant email triggered by behavior and time-based events.

Key takeaway for marketers: This further demonstrates the value of relevant messaging as found in drip versus single-
message campaigns. The combination of more frequent messaging and emails sent in smaller, targeted batches culminates
more often in customer wins. While frequency and cadence play a key role by staying top-of-mind with prospects, using a drip
approach to touch leads with the right message at the right time is the key driver of success.

Bounces and Unsubscribes
Analysis: Average hard-bounce rates (messages that are undeliverable because of invalid addresses) are about the same for
single-message and drip campaigns. This seems logical, as the driver of these rates is likely mostly about the opt-in form ap-
proach and nature of offers, which should be fairly consistent across single- and drip-message approaches.

The unsubscribe rate, however, is slightly higher in drip campaigns, possibly because of higher frequency and a more aggressive
or transparent sales approach.


STUDY

Key takeaway for marketers: The bounce and unsubscribe results did not reveal any compelling insight. However, if your rates
are well outside of the averages cited, you likely have problems with your opt-in forms, permission practices, or frequency or
content.

Impact of Frequency

Q1
Engagement Marketing Solutions Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Hard Bounce Rate 4.8% 4.4% 3.9% 4.4% 4.7% 4.0%
Unsubscribe Rate 0.5% 0.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.3% 0.9%
Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
Hard Bounce Rate 4.3% 5.0% 4.2% 5.2% 5.0% 5.7%
Unsubscribe Rate 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3%
Analysis: The top performers had two to four times as many email sends as weaker performers. The number of different
creative approaches used, however, did not vary greatly, ranging from about two to three different email versions.

Top-performing drip campaigns generally targeted less than a quarter of the number of recipients that other B2B marketers
in the study emailed. In fact, companies in the top-performing quartile sent to just seven people on average versus 150 to
170 for the low performers. These results suggest that the high-performing companies had more clearly defined targets or
segmented their email databases by behavior as the entry criteria of their campaigns.

Q1 Q2
Bottom Bottom
25% 25%
# Email Sends 80 109 26 69 69 35
# Creative Messages 2.4 3.1 2.1 2.5 2.6 2.8
# Contacts 2,855 757 4,367 3,070 602 5,461
Key takeaway for marketers: The major lesson is, “think small, small, small.” In other words, the more tightly batched and
narrow your emails are, the better. This means sending each drip message in real time, triggered by an event or change in
user behavior rather than batching the emails manually once per week, for example. Small groups of messages that are
highly relevant deliver “the right message at the right time” and are the core driver of higher response rates.

Summing Up: Using This Information to Improve Your Own Lead-Management Program
There are several ways you can use the information and findings in this report to engage prospects and advance your lead
nurturing.

• First, study the benchmark findings to see how you stand relative to others. However, don’t stop there.
• Next, benchmark against your goals:


STUDY

o Where could your program be if you changed your structure from single-message campaigns to drip campaigns using
messages by time and recipient behavior?
o What will it take to get you there?
• Assess what return you could expect in terms of lead quality, volume, customer wins and revenue.
• Determine how to reallocate your resources and adapt your content to work in a drip or lifecycle approach.
• Create a lead-scoring process that attaches a value to every action prospects take until they score high enough to be
moved over to the sales force for action.
• Utilize automation to achieve more with the same resources. This will require more upfront time to create messages and a
scoring system as well as create time and behavior triggers for message sequencing. But after that, the program will run
largely on autopilot.

Resources
Definitions of Key Terms

Single-message campaign: These are campaigns, usually including periodic newsletters or solo promotions, in which every
subscriber receives the same message each time, regardless of his or her place in the sales cycle, preferences, interests or
behavior.

Drip campaign: A campaign (email and/or direct mail and telesales) using a series of messages distributed based on prospect
data, timing and/or user actions. Messages typically include calls to action that when acted on may increase a person’s lead
score and potentially move that person into a new message track or lead status.

Multitrack/multistep campaign: A campaign that mixes automatically launched messages in a timed sequence, but which
assigns participants to one of several tracks based on their data or behavior at the launch. The lead will likely move to a new
track based on time/completing a track, taking certain actions or having a change in demographics or firmagraphics.

Key differences among campaign types: Single-message campaigns typically do not build on previous responses, are
launched manually and reflect company goals more than recipient interest or action. Drip-campaign messages typically launch
automatically based on an action such as a download or information request and center on the prospect. Multitrack/step
campaigns also use a series of timed messages designed to move the prospect further into the sales funnel but which differ
according to the track and reflect the prospect’s own data and actions.

Top and bottom quartiles: For each metric we analyzed the overall average as well as the top 25 percent and bottom 25
percent quartiles. For each metric analyzed, we sorted the data by that, or another, metric deemed to be the best indicator of
performance. We then reported the top 25 and bottom 25 percent. For example, we used click-through rates to sort the quartiles
for most of the email response rates.

To find out more about Silverpop’s Engage B2B solution and how it can benefit your company, please contact toll free
at 1-877-484-7704

Visit us at www.silverpop.com/b2b


Benchmark study of B2B lead management practices

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Semelhante a Benchmark study of B2B lead management practices

Semelhante a Benchmark study of B2B lead management practices (20)

Mais de Vaibhav Agarwal

Mais de Vaibhav Agarwal (7)

Último

Último (20)

Benchmark study of B2B lead management practices