About half (51%) of B2B marketers say that revenue/bookings is an extremely important way that marketing gets measured, according to a recent report [download page] from Fortella that takes a look at the importance of revenue-driven marketing.
Among the more than 100 senior-level B2B marketers surveyed, two-thirds (67%) indicated that the primary responsibility of marketing at their company was to drive revenue (i.e pipeline, bookings, renewals). By comparison, around one-quarter (26%) said their primary role was supporting sales and partners, with just 7% saying it was to increase brand awareness.
Respondents estimated that, on average, between 41-60% of their companies’ sales pipeline comes directly from marketing, with 61-80% of it being influenced by marketing.
Marketing Measurement
This drive to increase revenue also shows up in the respondents’ preferred form of marketing measurement. Revenue/bookings was the metric that the largest share of respondents said is extremely (51%) or fairly (29%) important to how marketing is primarily measured at their company. Qualified pipeline also emerged as extremely important for more than half (54%) of respondents.
Metrics such as ROI (74%) and MQLs (60%) were also indicated as fairly or extremely important to marketing measurement, whereas awareness metrics ranked lowest in terms of perceived extreme importance, cited by only 11%.
At a time when marketers are highly revenue-driven, attribution models are becoming more and more sophisticated – a study by Activate, produced in association with Marketing Charts, found that some 43% of B2B marketing decision-makers use multiple touchpoints in attributing success, with 15% turning to AI-based models.
And, with lead qualification important to Fortella’s respondents, Activate’s study also found that B2B marketers are changing their approach to lead scoring by including additional account-level fields.
Hitting Revenue Goals
When asked about their company’s go-to-market strategy, virtually all (97% of) respondents to Fortella’s study take a targeted approach. For more than 6 in 10 (62%), this means breaking out by target, named or strategic accounts, while many likewise target by customer size (57%), geography (55%) and industry vertical (55%). Slightly fewer target by product, service or solution offering (44%) or by buyer roles and titles (42%).
Naturally, B2B marketers are hitting challenges in their attempts to hit objectives. For the largest portion (64%), budget and resources are a barrier to hitting revenue goals, while other cited challenges included tracking/measurement (46%), data quality (42%), talent/team (36%) and sales & marketing alignment (33%).
Fortunately, a variety of digital marketing tools are currently helping revenue-driven marketers. A majority are using tools like CRM (80%), email marketing (80%), social media (79%) and marketing automation (78%), with tools such as lead routing (53%), account-based marketing (53%), business intelligence/analytics (51%) and sales engagement (51%) also each used by around half.
Interestingly, in this study, customer data platforms are the least used tool among respondents (27%) despite previous research showing marketers to be more than convinced of the benefits of CDPs.
Read the full report here.
About the Data: Findings are based on a survey of 117 senior-level B2B marketers across industries and company sizes conducted between August and November 2020.
