B2C Lead Report. Good News For SEO’s and Email Marketers.

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 by Sean Maguire

B2C Lead Report. Good News For SEO’s and Email Marketers.

Two weeks ago, Andy brought you the B2B Lead Generation handbook. Without further ado, we now bring you B2C.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Email marketing are the two best bets for your marketing dollar, according to a new report from UK Based eConsultancy in conjunction with Clash-Media. “Viral marketing” landed on the other end of the spectrum based on the feedback of 600 companies.

Some of the highlights from company respondents:

A greater proportion of lead generation budget is being spent on online (on average, 53%) than offline (44%).
Compared to 2007, PPC is getting a bigger proportion of online lead generation budgets even though natural search is perceived to be better value for the money.
PPC now gets a third of this budget (33%) compared to 28% in 2007. Meanwhile, SEO now only gets 15% of the budget compared to 18% last year.
Companies are now investing more in their in-house email marketing. The average proportion of budget devoted to this has increased from 10% to 15%.
The biggest fallers since 2007 are affiliate marketing (from 50% to 43%),email marketing – rented lists (from 33% to 28%) and viral marketing (from 35% to 22%).

Luke Pursey, UK Managing Director, Clash-Media, stated:

The most encouraging difference from last year’s report is that now marketers are finally beginning to recognise proactive online lead generation as its own area of online marketing and not as a sub-division of affiliate marketing. The disconnect now is… helping them to make the most of it and maximising its potential as an extremely effective online marketing tool.”

No doubt there are a plethora of competing online lead generation activities. However, the results of the survey beg the question:

If marketers view SEO as a better value than PPC, why have the budget dollars slated for SEO decreased by 3% year over year? Is it the age old “snake oil” perception problem of SEO’s? Are SEO’s just lousy salespeople?

Any thoughts SEO’s?

The in-depth 44page report is chock full of charts, graphs and insightful tidbits on the various methods of online lead generation – a valuable resource for online marketers.

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16 comments on “B2C Lead Report. Good News For SEO’s and Email Marketers.”

Joe Richey Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 12:41 am

I have used PPC and email lead capture since 2000
and its the only way to go… Any other way is simply a slower path to the bank…….
Prashant Kumar Pracheta Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 2:07 am

I am doing SEO from last 2.5 years. and i am getting good results by doing that. I am also thinking that its a effective way to make online presence.

Prashant Kumar Pracheta’s last blog post..Bored with yahoo.com – Try ymail.com and rocketmail.com
Otilia Otlacan Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 5:32 am

Can’t help but notice that buzz marketing isn’t mentioned, even though some of it may be integrated in the ‘viral marketing’ category, I assume.
Does anybody know if the US regulators consider following the UK and EU ones and cut down on most of the buzz-y practices?

Otilia Otlacan’s last blog post..Google Launches AdPlanner, Promotes the DoubleClick MediaVisor Platform
Ashley Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 5:58 am

I am doing SEO for about three years and should accept it’s quite successful!!!
Eva White Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 6:34 am

SEO is quite effevtive. I have seen the difference it makes to traffic.

Eva White’s last blog post..Charging Your Phone? Forget It!
Nick Stamoulis Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am

This makes perfect sense SEO and Email Marketing are both forms of direct marketing, while PPC is direct as well, but is and always be advertising.

Nick Stamoulis’s last blog post..Funny How People Will Take What Matt Cutts Says As SEO Advice
Keylogger Guy Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 6:49 am

Does email marketing mean spam?
Hendry Lee Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 11:01 am

It could be that with universal search, nowadays marketers also focus on rich media, which is up by 1 percent.

Just a guess, but my thought about the importance of SEO hasn’t changed a bit.

It works.

Hendry Lee’s last blog post..Blog Title – Do You Write It First?
Top Rated Says:

June 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

That’s good news about the email marketing. I’ve got a list of about 1000 (and growing) very targeted emails for a pretty specific and competitive niche. I’m just too chicken to use them for fear of being labeled an email spammer.

Top Rated’s last blog post..Absolutely The Best Point And Shoot Digital Camera
SeoPositive Says:

June 27th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

I got a list of about 750 and also growing. I have email some, but am worried also about being seen as an email spanner
SEO Says:

June 29th, 2008 at 3:39 am

Email marketing can be good if we are using it correctly such as updating new info but the recipients will start to think something when we start to promote something into their email.

SEO’s last blog post..Belajar SEO- June 28
Goran Web Design Says:

June 29th, 2008 at 5:18 pm

Its great to see that SEO is still above PPC. Even though there seems to be more PPC providers of late.
Cat Says:

July 1st, 2008 at 7:19 am

While PPC is direct as well, but is and always be advertising.
B2C lead generation - what’s the best mix? « The Tyre Blog Says:

July 9th, 2008 at 11:54 am

[...] July 9, 2008 Yesterday, Marketing Pilgrim released an interesting diagram showing which marketing techniques companies preferred to use to connect with th…. [...]
SEO Chester Says:

August 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm

SEO is for long term results and surely all businesses should be more interested in this, do you agree?
Stuart, SEO Chester Cheshire UK.
Lee Says:

November 13th, 2008 at 2:51 am

The most effective SEO tatic (well, not even a tactic) I have ever used is the combination of organic SEO and PPC.

Combinding them both together can be a very potent mix.