Daniel Burstein

B2B Marketing Research: 68% of B2B marketers haven’t identified their Marketing-Sales funnel … and it shows

March 9th, 2012

B2B marketing has always been complicated, and has only become more complex over the last few years thanks to evermore empowered buyers, new technologies, a difficult economy and growing international organizations that make navigating potential buyers and influencers in target companies harder by the day.

So, I sat down with Jen Doyle, Senior Research Manager, MECLABS, for a look at her recent discoveries from her 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report to see what marketers are telling us about these challenges …

 

 

Here are some of the research discoveries Jen and I discussed in the video, along with the source charts:

  • At 1:06 – Challenges are still growing for B2B marketers. Lead quality, lead volume and conveying value are getting harder for B2B marketers every year.

 

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  • At 2:19 – The continual struggle between quality and quantity of leads. The marketplace is evolving, and marketers are resistant to adapt to the latest best practices.

 

Click to enlarge

 

  • At 5:12 – Perceptions on the effectiveness of all tactics experienced dramatic declines in 2011.

 

Click to enlarge

 

  • At 7:14 – And now for one last reason why B2B marketers are feeling more challenged. Sure, there are some pretty strong macro conditions – more empowered buyers, more challenging org structures, even more complexity within their own organizations – that might be accounting for the increasing difficulty of B2B marketing.

 

But could marketers be helping themselves out more in the face of these headwinds? Some shocking data – only 68% of B2B marketers have identified their Marketing-Sales funnel (and you can’t optimize your funnel until you’ve defined it) and 79% of marketers have not established lead scoring.

[Adoption of latest best practices is sluggish]

If you would like to share your marketing wisdom on a future episode of Marketing Research in Action and live in (or will be in) the Jacksonville area, please let me know.

 

Related Resources:

MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report – FREE excerpt

Marketing Research Chart: Most challenging Marketing-Sales funnel processes

The Complex Sale: Lead scoring effort increases conversion 79%

B2B Marketing: Combining sales and marketing knowledge to improve lead qualification

Lead scoring thoughts to share

Daniel Burstein

About Daniel Burstein

Daniel Burstein, Senior Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS. Daniel oversees all content and marketing coming from the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa brands while helping to shape the editorial direction for MECLABS – digging for actionable information while serving as an advocate for the audience. Daniel is also a speaker and moderator at live events and on webinars. Previously, he was the main writer powering MarketingExperiments publishing engine – from Web clinics to Research Journals to the blog. Prior to joining the team, Daniel was Vice President of MindPulse Communications – a boutique communications consultancy specializing in IT clients such as IBM, VMware, and BEA Systems. Daniel has 18 years of experience in copywriting, editing, internal communications, sales enablement and field marketing communications.

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