Demand Generation & SEO Benchmark Report

Introduction

Demand generation is an increasingly important marketing function, so important in fact that many organizations now have dedicated demand generation managers and teams in place. Marketing activities that create awareness for products, services and the companies that provide them fall under the definition of demand generation. Today, demand generation has achieved distinction in its own right as a foundational, mission-critical strategy for many sales and marketing organizations.

Paid media has become a staple in the demand generation diet. When the organization is hungry for more leads, the demand generation team knows it can use paid media to quickly pump up the flow of leads. This process has become increasingly refined to the point where it is now a fairly exact science driven by metrics, and mature demand generation processes are able to forecast revenue with great precision.

There really isn’t a downside to this form of demand generation. However, has the process’ appetite for paid media caused organizations to neglect the role of organic search in demand generation? Do organizations see differences in the quality of leads produced through paid versus earned media?

To find out, Conductor sponsored a study, the result of which is this report. The study’s primary goal was to learn more about the role of SEO in demand generation, as well as gaining a current view of the state of the demand generation process. The data gathered during this study will provide marketers with benchmarks and insights to ensure their demand generation process strikes the right balance between paid and earned media usage, while better understanding the value of SEO and the website experience in demand generation.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Executive Summary
3. The State of Demand Generation
4. Demand Generation Areas of Investment
5. Paid Search vs. Organic Search
6. Website Experience
7. Demand Generation Metrics
8. Demand Generation Challenges
9. The ROI of Demand Generation
10. Analyst Bottom Line
11. Acknowledgements

12. About Conductor
13. About Demand Metric
14. Appendix - Survey Background

Research Methodology

This Demand Metric Benchmark Study survey was administered online during the period of October 22, 2014 through November 6, 2014. During this period, 293 responses were collected, 74 of which were disqualified because they did not report having a demand generation process. Of the remaining responses, 151 were complete enough for inclusion in the analysis. The data was analyzed using SPSS to ensure the statistical validity of the findings. The representativeness of these results depends on the similarity of the sample to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.