InsideSales.com Reveals Most Effective Methods for

SILICON SLOPES, UT--(Marketwired - Jun 13, 2017) - Sales acceleration software leader, InsideSales.com today announced the release of an original study highlighting the most effective lead generation tactics while offering insight into how these are viewed and applied by sales and marketing professionals.

The lifeblood of any successful business -- the ability to generate high quality sales leads -- does not come without difficulties. In fact, the report, entitled Optimal Lead Generation Methods, revealed that nearly half (49 percent) of all sales and marketing representatives agree that generating sufficient lead volume is their top marketing challenge. Converting leads to customers (43 percent) and improving lead quality (39 percent) are the second and third biggest concerns of marketing professionals, respectively.

When it comes to leveraging social media, Facebook and Twitter are eclipsed by LinkedIn, which leads the pack in terms of professional connections and, by extension, sales and marketing opportunities. In the past four years, respondents' opinions regarding LinkedIn's effectiveness in lead generation has jumped 28 percent, compared to Twitter's ten percent.

When it comes to the use of these tactics, company websites take the lead at an adoption rate of 83 percent, followed closely behind by email (74 percent) and LinkedIn (69 percent). However, the data reveals there is still a gap between which tactics leaders and marketers are adopting and which produce results.

Exposing the Disconnect Between Adoption and Effectiveness

Much of the challenge marketers reported in generating leads could lie in the fact that there are discrepancies between methodologies and results. For example, when it comes down to which methods actually drive results, small executive events were identified as the best way (79 percent) to generate high quality brand awareness. Respondents then listed trade shows (77 percent) and webinars (75 percent) as the next most effective methods. Paradoxically, despite their proven record, small executive events are underutilized.

"The conclusions of this study vigorously challenge conventional wisdom and bring enormous insight into what works and what doesn't when it comes to lead generation," said Ken Krogue, founder and president of InsideSales.com. "Clearly, it's time to rewrite the playbook and dedicate resources to looking at the methodologies sales organizations have in place to ensure they are operating effectively and able to generate tangible results."

The study further reveals:

Top Five Adopted Lead Generation Methods:

1. Company Website (83 percent) 2. Email (74 percent) 3. LinkedIn (69 percent) 4. Trade shows (62 percent) 5. Blogs (53 percent)

The Battle Brewing Between Sales and Marketing:

• According to this study, the sales department leans more towards adopting LinkedIn as a lead gen method, while marketing preferred paid media and rich media.
• Almost half (45 percent) of all survey respondents in marketing see more value in outdoor media than people in sales positions do. People in sales positions saw sponsorships and Google+ as being more valuable.

All of this data and more can be seen in the full Optimal Lead Generation Methods report, available here .

About InsideSales.com InsideSales.com offers the industry's first AI-powered predictive sales acceleration platform. Built on Neuralytics, a predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine that drives revenue growth by delivering an optimized experience for both salesperson and buyer. The platform fuels sales rep performance and provides buyer personalization with breakthrough innovations in predictive sales communications, engagement tracking, forecasting and rep motivation. InsideSales.com has received numerous accolades for its technology, including being named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 and Forbes Cloud 100 lists, and earning recognition as one of the fastest growing companies, according to Inc. InsideSales.com enterprise customers include ADP, Microsoft and Groupon.