Octane Interactive

Branding Forward: Navigating a Branding World in the Midst of Transition

You may find the results of a survey conducted by the Branding Forward Project interesting and helpful to your efforts.

The Branding Forward Project, a collaboration between Mechanica and Fast Company, is an ongoing investigation of the challenges and opportunities faced by those on today’s branding frontlines, and the tools and approaches being considered and leveraged. The study reveals a branding world that is undergoing a very real, and often polarizing, transition.

These are the opinions of 643 ad agencies and client side marketers working in booth consumer and business to business marketing. My take on this survey is that you should consider that different size companies have different opinions about branding. This survey does not differentiate the size of the organizations responding, so view the results with your situation in mind.

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2011/6152/is-brand-marketing-in-a-revolution-or-evolution

Website Generates 41% of B2B Sales Leads

There is an interesting new study conducted by Demandbase, a company that enables B2B marketers to improve marketing conversions and turn web traffic into sales, titled 2011 National Website Demand Generation Study.

The number one lead source is personal connections and referrals (41%). No surprise there. The number 2 source is the company website (23%) and number 3 is email (14%).  With 23% of sales leads coming from the company website the importance of optimizing a prospect’s visit would be of paramount concern. However, when asked if responders thought their companies maximized their company’s website lead potential 80% percent said no.  

Clearly there is room for improvement. You can obtain a copy of the study at

http://www.demandbase.com/landing-page/2011-b2b-website-demand-gen-survey-results