In the second week of March, inbound demo request volume dipped slightly but lead quality improved, yielding a solid flow of meetings. Across RevenueHero customers using automated inbound scheduling, 14,834 demo requests were captured (about a 7% decrease from ~16,026 in the first week of March. Qualified leads rose to about 69.9% of requests (up from ~66% the prior week , indicating better targeting overall.

Inbound meetings booked came in at 5,891 (down ~7.5% week-over-week from 6,371, which is ~56.8% of qualified leads converting to meetings (slightly below ~60% last week).
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Inbound Demo Requests – Volume Surges and Dips by Industry

Several industries saw notable shifts in demo request volumes compared to the first week of March. On the surging side, interest from tech-focused segments spiked dramatically: IT & Security Software leads quintupled (~620 vs 120 last week, +416%), and Developer Tools nearly quadrupled (~431 vs 111, +289%).

Demand also climbed in Sales and Marketing software – Sales Software requests jumped to 1,925 (up ~48% from 1,301 ), and Marketing Software nearly doubled to 779 (+86%). Additionally, HR Software saw ~946 requests (almost +85% week-over-week), and Financial & Accounting Software grew ~45% to 438 requests. These spikes suggest successful campaigns or seasonal interest in these sectors.

In contrast, a few industries experienced declines in inbound demand. Education & E-Learning software dropped to roughly 1,880 demo requests (down ~23% from 2,448 in the first week ), continuing a cooldown after a previously high-interest period. The Travel & Hospitality software category saw the steepest fall – only about 150 requests this week, a sharp –83% plunge from ~899 last week. (Notably, last week’s travel spike appears to have been anomalous; we’ll see below that its lead quality was very low, so the pullback in volume may reflect the end of an untargeted campaign.)

Other modest dips included Healthcare & Medical Software (776, down from 908) and Real Estate & Property Management (374, a slight –5% dip). Overall, mid-market and enterprise-oriented segments (e.g. Sales, Marketing, IT) drove more of the volume this week, while some SMB-heavy verticals (Education, Hospitality) slowed.

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Lead Qualification % – Are We Attracting the Right Prospects?

Lead quality improved overall in Week 2, suggesting marketing efforts were more on-point in many industries.

About 10,367 of 14,834 demo requests were qualified (~69.9% qualified vs ~66.1% the week prior) – a positive sign that a greater share of inbound interest was a good fit. Several industries stood out for exceptional qualification rates. Real Estate & Property Management software leads were extremely well-targeted – ~97.9% qualified this week (366 of 374 demos), up from an already stellar ~93.7% in the first week .

Manufacturing & Supply Chain software also saw ~73% of requests qualified, and Marketing Software maintained a high 77.8% qualification (slightly down from 81.1% prior).

Legal & Compliance software stayed strong at ~84% qualified (just shy of last week’s 88.1%, which had jumped from ~65% the week before – indicating much better targeting of legal prospects lately). High qualification rates in these segments signal that recent campaigns are attracting the right audiences with clear needs.

Several other categories made notable quality gains. After what could have been potential campaign adjustments, Travel & Hospitality software leads rebounded to ~62.7% qualified – a huge improvement from the mere 10.3% (!!) qualification rate last week  where we saw quantity over quality.

Mid-market focused segments like IT & Security Software remained high quality at ~86.1% qualified (holding steady despite volume surging fivefold), and Financial & Accounting leads improved to ~69.9% qualified (up from ~64%). This suggests that even with more top-of-funnel volume, marketing in these areas kept messaging tightly aligned to ideal customer profiles.

On the other hand, a few sectors showed qualification challenges. Sales Software leads, while numerous, only saw about 43.7% qualify – an improvement from ~40.3% last week  but still on the low side. This dip from earlier benchmarks (51–52% in late February) hints that recent Sales Tech campaigns are bringing in a lot of volume, but ultimately gets filtered out as not the right fit based on the qualification criteria keeping their sales team’s calendars protected. Developer Tools also saw qualification percentage drop to 58.7% (down from ~83.8% prior week), indicating that the big influx of developer-oriented leads included many non-ideal prospects.

Similarly, Healthcare & Medical Software leads remained relatively low in quality at ~50.1% qualified (up slightly from ~45.5%  last week), pointing to an ongoing need to better filter or target within that broad sector. Even Support Software (customer support tech) slipped to ~71.4% qualified from ~80%, which while not terrible, suggests some recent campaigns may be casting too wide a net. Marketers in these industries should review their audience targeting and messaging to lift the right-fit percentages. Higher qualification not only means marketing is hitting the mark, but it also spares sales teams from wasting cycles on disqualified leads. 

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Inbound Meeting Rate – Converting Qualified Leads to Meetings

Once leads are qualified by RevenueHero’s instant routing, the next key metric is how many convert into actual meetings. The inbound meeting rate (qualified demo requests that resulted in a booked meeting) averaged about 56.8% this week across all industries. (slightly down from ~60% last week).

We see a wide range here by industry, with some converting the majority of qualified leads to meetings and others leaving many meetings unbooked.

At the high end, industries with very targeted leads naturally saw excellent conversion to meetings. Manufacturing, Industrial & Supply Chain software led with an ~70% inbound meeting rate (i.e. 7 in 10 qualified leads booked a meeting), up a tick from ~68% previously. Real Estate software was close behind at ~69.7% (255 meetings out of 366 qualified leads), also improving from ~65% – here the combination of nearly all leads being qualified and strong buyer intent is yielding great meeting numbers.

Marketing Tech conversions climbed to ~68.5% (up from ~64%), and Financial & Accounting software booked ~67% of qualified leads (up from ~64% prior). These categories illustrate the payoff when high lead quality and intent is met with automated scheduling to capture interest instantly.

On the lower end, a few segments are seeing a lot of qualified prospects not booking meetings – an area for Ops teams to address. Customer Support Software had the lowest conversion, with only ~38% of qualified leads turning into meetings (even though 71% were good fits). This is up slightly from ~34.5% last week, but still indicates that over 60% of interested, qualified support buyers aren’t connecting with sales. It’s possible these prospects are slower to commit or lack urgency, but it may also point to staffing gaps with not enough sales reps for specific regions.

Travel & Hospitality software also converted only ~45.7% of qualified leads, though that’s improved from ~39% last week (likely because the remaining leads after last week’s purge were more genuinely interested).

Notably, the Sales Software category saw its meeting rate dip to ~49% from about 60% the week prior. In effect, half of the qualified sales-tech buyers didn’t book a meeting. This drop coincided with the surge in Sales demo requests; it could be that many new “top-of-funnel” prospects showed interest but were less ready to commit time. Ops teams in Sales tech may need to ensure rapid personal outreach or nurturing for those who didn’t auto-book, to capitalize on that interest before it goes cold. See how to automate this with this playbook.

On a positive note, Retail & e-commerce software firms improved their meeting conversion to ~52% (up from ~42% previously), more than half of qualified retail leads are now moving forward to discussions.

IT & Security Software, after an onslaught of leads, had a still-solid ~58.6% meeting rate; this is down from an extraordinary ~73.8% prior, but given the 5x volume spike, it’s understandable. Ensuring sales reps had enough calendar slots or coverage for that influx will be important – the slight lag in conversion here might be simply due to bandwidth.

HR Software also saw about 57% of qualified leads book meetings (down from ~67%), likely for similar reasons as their volume nearly doubled. In summary, where we see lower meeting rates (Support, Travel, Sales tech), there’s an opportunity for ops to analyze if certain types of qualified leads (based on region, campaign, locale) consistently drop off or if additional nudges are needed. The good news is that with automated qualification and scheduling in place, teams can focus on these fine-tuning aspects rather than chasing down every lead manually.

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SMB vs. Mid-Market vs. Enterprise – Segment Trends

Breaking down the data by company size segment we saw some shifts in who’s driving inbound Mid-sized companies saw the bulk of demo requests this week – about 7,352 requests (≈50% of total), outpacing SMBs.

Small businesses saw ~5,865 requests (~39%), a drop from ~6,060 the week before as a share. Enterprise companies saw ~1,617 requests (~11%), roughly on par with last week’s share.

In terms of lead quality by segment, SMBs had the highest qualification rate: about 78.6% of small-business requests were qualified this week (up from ~75.5% ).

Leads for mid market companies were ~66.3% qualified, a notable jump from ~61.6% last week, indicating improved targeting even as volume shifted.

Enterprises saw the lowest numbers in terms of percentage of inbounds that were qualified. ~54.5% qualified (essentially flat vs ~54.3% prior ). 

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Takeaways for Marketing and Ops Teams

• Double Down on What’s Working: Industries like Real Estate, Manufacturing, and Marketing Software are seeing high qualification and meeting rates – a sign that messaging is spot on and prospects are eager to talk. Marketing teams in these sectors should amplify the campaigns or channels that brought in such well-qualified traffic. Ops teams should be prepared to handle the continued strong conversion: ensure sales reps remain responsive and keep calendars open, because these leads are ready to meet.
  
  
• Optimize Underperforming Funnels: Sales Tech and Support Software pipelines have plenty of room for improvement in conversion. Marketing should revisit targeting criteria for Sales Software campaigns – the low (~44%) qualification suggests too many untargeted sign-ups. Refining ad audiences or lead forms to emphasize qualifiers (e.g. company size, use case) could lift quality.
  
  
• Leverage Automation Data: The patterns by segment – high SMB qual%, high enterprise conversion – provide insight into where to tweak strategy. Marketing can use RevenueHero’s granular reporting to identify what sources are yielding unqualified leads (e.g. certain content syndication for Sales Software) and cut waste.
  
  Likewise, ops teams can use the “meetings not booked” data to identify whether a recent investment in a low intent marketing channel resulted in prospects with lesser urgency submitting requests, or if there is a new region that your sales teams potentially aren’t available to take meetings for.
  
  
• Continue to Iterate Campaigns: Week-over-week trends can fluctuate (as we saw with Travel & Hospitality’s course-correction). Marketing and ops should treat these weekly insights as feedback loops. In industries where pipeline volume fell this week (e.g. Education software), marketing might brainstorm new offers or adjust messaging to re-engage that audience.
  
  Where quality spiked or dipped unexpectedly, dig into the why – was there a particular webinar, ad, or referral source behind it? Use those learnings to continuously refine go-to-market tactics.