Dive Brief:

• B2B marketers value lead quality over lead quantity according to recent research from Ascend2.
• Improving lead quality was cited by 70% of surveyed marketers as the most important lead generation objective with increasing number of leads trailing both quality and increasing revenue.
• Other report findings include email marketing being cited as the most effective lead gen tactic as well being one of the least difficult to execute.

Dive Insight:

Research-based demand generation firm Ascend2 just released its Lead Generation Strategy Trends Survey Summary Report with insights from 300 marketing professionals conducted this month. A key finding in the report was B2B marketers value quality of leads over quantity of leads, illustrating that the days of marketers collecting as many names as possible and just dumping them on sales are over.

Out of the surveyed marketers, 70% cited lead quality as the most important lead gen objective, followed by increasing revenue at 58%, and coming in third was increasing the number of leads generated at 54%.

Another survey question asked what tactics are most effective as well as most difficult, and content marketing was named the most difficult tactic at 43%. It came in third in terms of effectiveness with 43%, behind website or landing pages at second most-effective (44%) and least-difficult (13%) tactic. Email led they was in the most effective category, taking second in the least-difficult area at 18%.