It’s October 31st and you know what that means… it’s All Hallows’ Eve or as we most commonly refer to it, Halloween. This personal favorite holiday of mine has evolved over time into the community-based event characterized by trick-or-treating that we’ve all come to know and love. However, it is believed to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.
With that in mind, I’m pleased to share with you 31 scary marketing statistics to ward off bad decisions and unnecessary marketing spend this fall and winter.
Social Media
- The more posts per day on Facebook, the lower the engagement. When a brand posts twice a day, those posts only receive 57% of the likes and 78% of the comments per post. (Track Social)
- On average, companies only respond to 30% of social media fans’ feedback. (Factbrowser)
- In any given week, less than 0.5% of Facebook fans engage with the brand they are fans of. (Marketing Science)
- 17% of the top 1,000 search terms on Twitter “churn over” every hour. (Twitter)
- 2/3 of Americans using social networks have never followed a brand. (Jay Baer)
- Google+ actually averages more visits per month than Facebook. Google+ receives 1.2 billion visits per month compared to Facebook’s 809 million. (iMedia Connection)
- Google+ has more than one billion total users, though only about a third (359 million) are active. (eConsultancy)
- 74% of Americans are unfamiliar with the concept of checking in to a location via mobile device, and only 3% have ever checked in. (Jay Baer)
- 47% of marketers say Facebook is overrated as a marketing platform. (iMedia Connection)
- LinkedIn has a lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter or Facebook. (Fast Company)
- 71% of tweets are ignored. Only 23% generate a reply. (iMedia Connection)
Online Marketing
- By 2016, more than half of the dollars spent in US retail will be influenced by the web. (Forrester Research)
- Only 48% of searches result in an organic click. The remaining 52% result in either a click on a paid ad, leaving the search engine results page without clicking on any listing, or starting a new search. (Brent Carnduff)
- Just 8% of Internet users account for 85% of online display ad clicks. (iMedia Connection)
- The average click-through rate (CTR) for online display ads is 0.11% (roughly one click per one thousand views). (Smart Insights)
Marketing Analytics & ROI
- CMOs report just 8% of their marketing budgets are designated to analytics. (CMO Survey)
- Only 35% of B2B marketing executives say they can calculate the ROI of their marketing spend most or all of the time. 42% say they can calculate ROI only some of the time, rarely or not at all. (B2B Marketing)
- While two out of three U.S. CMOs say they feel pressure from the top to prove the value of marketing, just 51% of CEOs agree “that marketing’s financial value is clear to the business.” (MarketingCharts)
Content Marketing
- Though more than 90% of marketers now use content marketing, just 42% of B2B marketers and 34% of B2C marketers believe they are effective at this. (e-Strategy Trends)
- 78% of CMOs believe custom content is the future of marketing. It’s not clear what the other 22% are thinking. (SocialTimes)
- 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing. Only 36% say they are effective at it. (FlipCreator)
- Though 62% of marketers blog or plan to blog in 2013, only 9% of US marketing companies employ a full-time blogger. (Fast Company)
- The top challenge for content marketers is “lack of time,’ according to 57% of B2C and 69% of B2B marketers (multiple responses permitted). (e-Strategy Trends)
Sales & Marketing Alignment
- 79% of marketing leads don’t ever make the conversion into a sale, commonly caused by a lack of lead nurturing. (MarketingSherpa)
- 50% of qualified leads are not yet ready to buy. (Gleanster)
- The average sales cycle has increased by 22% over the past 5 years. (SiriusDecisions)
- 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (MarketingSherpa)
- B2B buyers today are 70%-90% of the way through their “buying journey” before they reach out to a vendor. (B2B Marketing)
- By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human. (Gartner Research)
Marketing Management
- 64% of CMOs have little or an informal process to managing their marketing automation. (Annuitas Group)
- 79% of B2B marketing executives report noticeable skills gaps in the teams they manage. The top areas for skills gaps are in data analysis, customer insight, and digital marketing techniques. (B2B Marketing)
Ward off these roaming ghosts tonight as you celebrate Halloween and turn over a new leaf on November 3rd.
The shift from the traditional, outdated marketing funnel to a lifecycle view of the customer is just one way marketers can combat these scary metrics. To learn more about the lifecycle marketing methodology, check out this video (hopefully not by yourself… in the dark).
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
