Business and Marketing

B2B businesses not impressed with lead-gen

Virtually every B2B business in the 21st century uses some form of lead generation process, be it digitally or physically. However, more than 90% of these businesses are underwhelmed by the amount of leads their marketing generates, according to a recent study conducted by Demand Metric Research Corporation.

The study, which was sponsored by automation company Salesfusion, surveyed 200 small and medium-size businesses on the types of marketing they use to generate leads, which marketing is most effective at generating leads, and whether or not they are satisfied with their lead generation overall.

The online survey found that:

• The three most common lead generation strategies are email marketing, event marketing, and content marketing, cited by 78%, 73%, and 67% of respondents, respectively.


• Forty percent of the surveyed companies plan to shift investments from tradeshow and event marketing to other areas.


• Content marketing will become more of a top priority, with 70% of businesses planning to invest more in the area.


• Nearly half (45%) of companies are using some form of CRM to store lead data, and 84% of those companies have a standard in place for scoring lead quality.


• Seventeen percent of respondents still use spreadsheets to store information on their leads.


• Respondents cited Web forms as the most common way of lead capture (73%), followed by traditional data entry (66%).

Business Breaking News: 5 Smartpens for Business

For taking notes, it's hard to beat the reliability of pen and paper. Even in the smartphone and tablet era, many business users simply prefer to jot things down the old-fashioned way. But you don't have to choose between digital and analog notes anymore. A smartpen is an ink pen that can track the marks you make in a notepad and then recreate your notes in digital form. Digital notes are valuable because they can be backed up and duplicated, and they're easier to share and distribute than paper notes. Read on for five of the best smartpens currently available for business users.

Livescribe 3

To use the Livescribe 3 smartpen, first sync it with your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth. Next, boot up the Livescribe app on your mobile device. Once those two steps are complete, simply open up your notebook and start writing. While you write, your physical notes are replicated in digital form in the Livescribe app. If you're taking notes during a meeting or lecture, your mobile device will automatically capture audio from your surroundings.

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