Best-in-Class B2B companies generate on average 17% of their leads from social media channels, roughly 230% more marketing-generated leads than other companies (5%), according to a new report by Aberdeen Group, which examines the social marketing strategies of top-performing B2B companies.
In the new report, titled “B2B Social Meeting Marketing: Are We There Yet,” Aberdeen uses four key performance criteria to distinguish the Best-in-Class (top 20% of aggregate performers) from the Industry Average (middle 50%) and Laggard (bottom 30%) organizations.
The top 20% of companies (i.e., Best-in-Class) have achieved the following performance metrics:
- Average annual company revenue growth of 20%, compared with 8% for Industry Average and -3% for Laggard firms.
- 10% average year-over-year improvement of marketing leads resulting in closed business, compared with 3% for the Industry Average and -1% for Laggard firms.
- 44% of sales-forecasted pipeline generated by marketing, compared with 10% for Industry Average and 5% for Laggard firms.
- 73% annual customer retention rate, compared with 27% for Industry Average and 7% for Laggard firms.
Overall, 84% of all surveyed B2B companies are using social marketing in some form.
However, Best-in-Class companies are more likely to use social media primarily for lead-generation purposes, and more likely to integrate social marketing with other core channels and processes, the study found.