Survey Finds Marketers Finally Have Seat at the Executive Table, but Still Lack Accountability Tools
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 2006--Extraprise® the B2B database marketing services and CRM systems integration provider, today announced results from a national survey of B2B marketers which found that many challenges still exist in B2B marketing . Survey findings and anecdotes indicate that companies expect their marketing departments to strengthen their relationships with sales, but are reluctant to invest in automating those processes. Marketers preach the importance of data quality, but struggle with investments to clean and integrate it. In addition, marketers inherently seek measurement, yet often for the wrong metrics. The challenges facing B2B marketers have been well documented, but now they are close to finding the solutions with a seat at the corporate table.
The good news is that marketing's accountability extends beyond proving the merit of campaigns to include the impact spending and activities have on the organization as a whole. Specifically, an overwhelming majority (80%) of marketing departments has assumed an increased responsibility for sales activities and results within the last year. However, combined with following data revealing that: merely 14% of respondents are confident in customer data; only half of marketing departments have a process to prioritize leads (56%); and 20% of marketers still are not measuring results, CMO's have not made an appropriate level of investment in resources and technologies to deliver on their new responsibilities.
"The increasing responsibility of marketing to deliver ROI for the organization as a whole is a step in the right direction for companies that have traditionally been fragmented with sales on one side of the organization and marketing on the other, despite the need for complete integration between the two," said Chad Gottesman, chief marketing officer, Extraprise, adding, "In order for marketing to have a meaningful impact on their sales organization, the two need to be tightly integrated. More specifically, it means that the leads created by marketing need to be efficiently delivered (with the proper intelligence) to members of the sales team."
The survey also uncovered that the majority of B2B marketers are not playing with a full deck as indicated by only 14% of respondents to claim to be 'very confident' in their customer data. Essentially, this leaves 86% of B2B marketers who wish they new more about their prospects.
"With the availability of today's technology and tools, it is astonishing to see such a small minority (14%) of B2B marketers who actually believe in their data. This implies that their targets are better segmented, campaigns are executed more quickly, and their analytics are more accurate than 86% of the field," added Gottesman. "At Extraprise, this is what we call a competitive advantage."
When asked how their marketing programs were measured, respondents answered in the following manner: 26% track closed business (ROI); 20% do not measure at all; 12% cite qualified leads as tracking method whereas 10% use response rates to gauge success; and 32% measure all three (ROI, qualified leads and response rates).
"B2B marketers still have a long way to go, given that 20% of companies don't measure the success of their marketing programs," said Gottesman. "This is almost as alarming as the fact that response rates alone are still being used to determine marketing success or failure." In addition, the survey revealed that only 56% of companies have a formalized process (not to mention technology) to prioritize leads for sales.
"This is not such good news for marketers because it implies that the '70% of leads are never followed up on' problem will persist well into the future unless marketers acquire technology and tools to prove accountability," added Gottesman.
Best practices for more efficient campaigns include tracking qualified leads within specified target groups, measuring sales performance from prioritized leads, and focusing on continuous improvement through improved targeting, data cleansing, and analysis. Outsourcing certain database marketing functions (analytics, execution, etc.) is an option for companies seeking B2B data and process expertise, and to eliminate the risk of internal spending on technology infrastructure and resources. In addition, to build confidence in customer data, companies must begin setting parameters for ongoing updates and cleansing, integration with different data sources throughout the organization, and all precautions around SPAM and privacy laws being taken into consideration.
Extraprise offers its Insight-to-Interaction (i2i) services and platform to help marketers integrate one of the last remaining information silos in the corporate world -- the marketing database. i2i is a unique approach for helping companies better manage customer data, develop more relevant and timely insight, and increase the value of each customer interaction. As part of its i2i services, Extraprise provides its clients with dedicated resources for consolidating multiple customer data sources, creating better customer segmentation, developing predictive models, managing demand generation campaigns, and automating their operational systems spanning multiple customer channels.
The survey findings are based on responses from 60 B2B sales and marketing executives from Fortune 2000 companies. Other topics covered in the survey included adoption rates for new marketing and sales technologies. Only 12% of marketers reported their companies have been 'very aggressive' when it comes to adopting new marketing and sales technologies thus preventing marketers to produce results without the tools to do so efficiently. Sixty percent cite to be 'somewhat aggressive', and 28% claiming that they are 'not aggressive at all'.
For a report of the survey findings, please contact Jen Fleishman at jen@steinfleishman.com.
About Extraprise
Extraprise(R) specializes in B2B database marketing and CRM implementation services. Extraprise enables clients to overcome the traditionally fragmented approach to sales and marketing and transforms their data systems into effective information that is used to acquire, retain, and grow customers. In contrast to traditional marketing service providers, Extraprise focuses solely on the vastly underserved B2B marketplace and is able to do so because of their deep understanding of the complexities of B2B customer data and businesses processes. Extraprise's Insight-to-Interaction(TM) (i2i) platform combines data management, business insight, demand generation, and customer management and is available as a turnkey hosted service or on-premise at the client's location. Extraprise is the first company to combine these capabilities under one roof, enabling them to design systems, analyze data, execute marketing programs, and leverage customer information throughout the enterprise. The company is headquartered in Boston with offices throughout the U.S. For more information, visit www.extraprise.com.
