B2B Marketing Statistics – And Some Perspecitve

I received these statistics in a recent email and I thought they were worth sharing further with some comments. I am adding some implications as I see them below each one:

A whopping 68% of B2B organizations have not identified their funnel. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

• Without a defined funnel, it is very difficult to develop a predictable forecasting capability.
• Defining your funnel – with the buyer in mind – helps you develop the specific content you need to engage buyers at different stages.
• In most of our B2B work we help define a collaborative qualification model between sales and marketing where sales teams have early insight into marketing leads. By taking a “decision support” approach, the organization is not leaving it up to marketing to determine the relative value of a lead – often the sales rep can help make the judgment supported by the behavioral data.

Jeff Ernst of Forrester Research, Inc., estimates that only about 5% of marketers use a full-featured marketing automation solution. (Source: Forrester Research)

• This is a tricky statistic as we see quite a bit of adoption, however, when we work with our clients, we will typically seek ways to engage integrated MA solutions over point solutions. Examples are Optify, Hubspot, Marketo.
• For SMBs there is an opportunity to integrate point solutions with open APIs and connect the pieces together

61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

• I addressed this above. By establishing a collaborative “decision support” model, sales should have early visibility and can often identify promising leads. Armed with the behavior data, qualification can shift to sales where it belongs. 
• Marketing can over-engineer this qualification process with the assumption that sales needs to be more efficient. I error on having sales get access to all leads- along with lead scoring to help determine where to focus.

64% of CMOs have either an informal or no process to manage their marketing automation. (Source: The Annuitas Group)

• Again, a bit hard to believe. Certainly a process is critical.
• Often the complexity of the Marketing Automation system will dictate a rigid process. At a minimum, marketing needs to manage a campaign and editorial calendar that manages customer engagement effectively.

79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

• The right collaborative process helps facilitate effective lead nurturing. Reps need a facility to return the lead to the nurture process.
• It is no surprise to see “79%” – I might have expected a higher number. The question is – “What is a lead” -often a lead is driven by the completion of a call to action or form. What about a known visitor with a high time on site – is this a lead? This statistic is meaningless without understanding the definition of a lead –  at the marketing and sales levels.

Good luck and good selling!

Source of the statistics: Marketing email from Art Roberts at the Pedowitz Group