B2B Marketing Technology Strategy

Transcription

1 B2B Marketing Technology Strategy How an effective marketing technology strategy optimizes B2B marketing performance. Informatica in Partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Ascend2

2 B2B Marketing Technology Strategy How an effective marketing technology strategy optimizes B2B marketing performance. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Types of Marketing Technologies Used 4 Technology Availability Versus Utilization 5 Key Strategic Objectives 6 Rating Strategic Success 7 Trends in Marketing Performance 8 Most Challenging Obstacles to Success 9 Integrating Marketing Technologies 10 Budgeting for Marketing Technology 11 Most Effective Planning Resources 12 Survey Methodology and Demographics 13 Further Reading 14 Research Partners 15 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. You may adapt, copy, distribute and transmit this work. However, you must attribute the work as produced by Ascend2 and its Research Partners but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work. Informatica in Partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Ascend2 2

3 Introduction B2B Marketing Technology Strategy Increasing sales revenue is becoming a more important and more challenging objective for marketing leaders, forcing a shift toward crafting more effective technology-based marketing strategies. How will an effective marketing technology strategy improve business-to-business marketing performance? To find out, Informatica in partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Ascend2 fielded the Marketing Technology Survey and completed interviews with 215 business, marketing and sales professionals. 135 of the respondents are dedicated to the B2B channel and are exclusively represented in this report titled B2B Marketing Technology Strategy. We thank these busy professionals for sharing their valuable insights. This research has been produced for your use and may be used in your own marketing strategy planning and presentation materials. Clip the charts and write about them in your blog or post them on social media. This research is yours to share with credits as published, please. We hope you enjoy the report. Informatica in Partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Ascend2 3

4 Type of Marketing Technologies Used marketing technology is used by 89% of B2B companies surveyed. It s not surprising that marketing and social media marketing are so popular; these channels are critical to meeting marketing goals. And technologies like marketing automation and CRM systems integrate these channels. What is surprising is that data management technologies, the foundation that is used to optimize the effectiveness of all marketing programs, are only used by 37% of B2B marketers. Data management technologies enable you to use data more effectively, giving you the power to do more of what works and less of what doesn t. Chart 4

5 Technology Availability Versus Utilization Nearly two-thirds (64%) of B2B companies don t fully utilize the marketing technology they have (red columns). Whether they have all the tools they need or not, the remaining 36% are fully utilizing the marketing technologies available to them (blue columns). Expanding technology utilization will be key to improving results, and that begins with access. If the tools are not available, they can t be used. Chart 5

6 Key Strategic Objectives With nearly every form of marketing now technology driven, a clear understanding of desired outcomes is critical. To meet desired outcomes such as increasing lead generation you must first address the foundation the desired outcomes are built on: data. The ability to improve data quality and accuracy is an objective that is essential to drive the three most important objectives of an effective marketing technology strategy (See top 3 blue rows). If you want to improve targeting and personalization, you must address data quality and accuracy within your marketing technology efforts. Chart 6

7 Rating Strategic Success 71% of B2B companies rate their marketing technology strategy as successful at achieving their most important objectives. What does a successful marketing technology strategy look like? It starts with a clear and concise set of goals and an understanding of the most challenging obstacles to success. Then it follows a tactical plan of action for overcoming those obstacles and achieving the most important objectives. 29% of B2B marketers do not consider their marketing technology strategy successful at accomplishing their key objectives. Chart 7

8 Trends in Marketing Performance An effective marketing technology strategy will enable programs that influence attitudes and expectations. An impressive 86% of B2B companies say technology is changing marketing performance for the better, with 30% saying their improvements are significant. Continuously improving the performance of marketing is critical to profitable growth, and investments in B2B marketing technologies are producing high returns. Only 1% of B2B companies say marketing performance is worsening despite the use of technology, while only 13% report that technology has failed to change marketing performance. Chart 8

9 Most Challenging Obstacles to Success The most challenging obstacles to marketing technology success are the complexity of integrating technologies and the lack of an effective strategy to do so. Providers have made great strides in making marketing technologies easy to use. At the same time, the need to integrate data and functionality of disparate systems has been growing and becoming more complex. That is why a majority of B2B marketing companies point to the complexity of integrating technologies as the most challenging obstacle to marketing success. We also saw that even when we fully factored out the problems of toolset adequacy and usage, two key issues remained: data consistency and quality. Chart 9

10 Integrating Marketing Technologies Only 25% of B2B companies have extensively integrated their marketing technologies. Integrating marketing technologies helps B2B companies make the most of their data and should be a top priority. Integration allows for a better customer experience and will optimize the marketing and sales process. Cloud-based technologies provide a costeffective way of achieving a single view of your customer while minimizing the complexities of integration. 10

11 Budgeting for Marketing Technology With 65% of B2B companies increasing their marketing technology budgets, the biggest obstacle to integration is on its way to being overcome. While the majority of B2B marketers expect to increase their investment in marketing technology, about one-third are still concerned about it and either not changing or are decreasing their investments. The shift toward crafting a more effective technology-based marketing strategy will increase costs. However, this shift will also enable B2B marketers to better demonstrate their contribution to sales revenue with measureable ROI. Chart 11

12 Most Effective Planning Resources Planning a marketing technology strategy requires specialized resources that aren t always available in-house. To overcome a lack of in-house resources, marketers are turning to solutions that are quick and easy to implement. For example, Data as a Service solutions provide broad data management capabilities (such as data verification, data validation and data enrichment) and can be set-up with a minimum of IT overhead. 12

13 Survey Methodology and Demographics Ascend2 benchmarks the performance of widely-adopted digital marketing strategies, technologies and practices using standardized questionnaires, research methodology and a proprietary 3-Minute Survey format. Findings are examined in a quantitative context by experienced analysts and reported objectively. This survey was conducted online from a panel of more than 50,000 US and international marketing, sales and business professionals representing a range of company sizes and respondent roles as follows: Number of Employees More than % 50 to % Fewer than 50 54% Role in the Company CEO / COO / CMO / CSO etc. 36% Marketing VP / Director / Manager 27% Sales VP / Director / Manager 11% Marketing or Sales Staff 19% Other 7% Informatica in Partnership with Dun & Bradstreet and Ascend2 13

14 Further Reading Get the ebook, written for marketers, to learn how to use your customer contact data from all points of acquisition and retention to provide a great customer journey, across lines of business, touch points, and channels. Learn more. 14

15 Research Partners Informatica is a leading independent software provider focused on delivering transformative innovation for the future of all things data. We help marketers clean, secure, and connect their data to generate insight, deliver great customer experiences, accelerate revenue, and improve operations. Informatica has solutions ranging from data preparation, contact record verification and data enrichment to data integration, data quality and master data management. To learn more about how Informatica can help marketers, Let s Talk. Dun & Bradstreet grows the most valuable relationships in business by uncovering truth and meaning from data. From banking to high-tech, from retail to energy, more than 34,000 companies and 87% of the Fortune 500 trust Dun & Bradstreet to provide critical data and insights they need to create every-day connections with their most valuable constituents. Learn more about Dun & Bradstreet If marketing professionals are your ideal prospects, we can help you find more of them. Marketing software and data companies, and digital marketing agencies partner with Ascend2 to reliably generate demand and supplement content for marketing their firms. Our Research Partner Programs are transparent spotlighting your brand and the interests of your market. Learn more about Ascend2 15