The survey found that B2B marketers face challenges with time management and measuring marketing effectiveness. Over 66% felt they could improve customer acquisition with more effective digital marketing. Similarly, 66% agreed that email marketing is not used to its full potential. Nearly half felt that marketing automation could boost efficiency. The biggest challenge cited was a lack of time. The role of the marketing manager is also becoming more complex in the digital environment. Most would invest additional budget in marketing tools and software.

1. B2B Marketing Survey 2012
Key challenges for B2B marketers

2. Introduction Blogs
Content PPC
The buying cycle has changed. The internet, digital
environment, multichannel and multiplatform browsing have
made sure of this.
Relationship Marketing SEO
Now customers are in control, they are more informed, they
want more value and expect it. They think you know them and
they use social media to discuss good and bad experiences.
They are multichannel, whether you are or not.
This means that marketing, and sales, need to be at the Social Media Internet
forefront of the customers mind, wherever they may be
browsing… otherwise a competitor will be. Website
Marketing and sales need to be smarter in the way they
engage prospects – keeping them engaged throughout the
buying cycle and ensuring that communication and
conversations are timely, relevant and intelligent.
We wanted to find out if these questions were relevant. If
How can businesses ensure their time is spent effectively? they were in the minds of the professional majority and
How can time be made elastic? And how can managers what the real business challenges are for marketers in the
ensure that each individual is contributing value? digital age.
The real underlying question is, how can the efficiency of
marketing and sales be measured?

3. About the survey
Who?
In total, we gathered 56 completed surveys
and the responses comprised of:
30 B2b
10 B2C
13 Agency
3 Other

4. Summary….
The majority of respondents strive to be more 66% of respondents admit that email marketing is
effective with their time, although happy with the not being used to it’s full potential in their
people they have. organisation.
Efficiency. Nearly 2 in 3 respondents believe Supporting the fact that marketing automation
they could be more effective in their digital is still in it’s early adoption phase – just under
half agreed that marketing automation could
marketing strategy, acquisition and execution . boost efficiency.

5. What’s your biggest challenge?
Q. For your company (or your client), which do you
believe are the biggest challenges you face?
Getting a CRM system Please rank in order of biggest challenge. (With 1
5.07 being the biggest challenge to 6 being the
to support the sales… smallest)………….
Measuring and
3.91
evaluating marketing… This clearly illustrates the biggest
challenge facing marketers; time.
Nurturing prospects
3.32
along the sales… Marketing automation is the biggest
time saving enabler available in
Measuring todays software market.
3.32
Engagement of…
Ensuring Sales and
2.77
Marketing are…
Insufficient time to do
2.61
everything
1 being the biggest business challenge 0 2 4 6

6. Could you be more effective with you digital
marketing?
7.1% Agree
Q. To what extent do you agree with this
Neutral statement:
Our customer acquisition could be improved with
more effective digital marketing.
Disagree
26.8% 66.1%
These results speak for themselves –
the majority agree that marketing could
be more effective.
Measurement is the key to efficiency &
pin-pointing where ROI is coming from
can supercharge marketing in 2013

7. Could email marketing be used more
effectively?
3.6%
Q. To what extent do you agree with this
12.5% statement:
66.1% We could use email marketing to nurture
our prospects more effectively.
17.9% Agree
Email.
The original digital marketing
Neutral communication channel is still
overwhelmingly underutilized as a
lead nurture tool, especially now
Disagree when dynamic content is so easily
included and personalised.
Marketing automation can give
businesses the traction they need to
execute nurture programs with high
precision.

8. Q. To what extent do you agree with this statement:
We could be better at measuring the impact of Could your sales journey be measured more
marketing on the sales journey
effectively?
The impact of marketing and nurture 1.8%
material throughout the sales
journey is a highly sought after
metric.
17.9%
More could be done to effectively
measure this by employing and ROI
model.
80.4%
Agree
Neutral
Disagree

9. Can marketing automation improve marketing
effectiveness?
Q. To what extent do you agree with this 1.8%
statement: Marketing Automation could improve
the effectiveness of our marketing considerably.
10.9%
Only 1 in 10 disagree with the above
statement……..this implies that
marketing automation could, across 49.1%
the board, improve effectiveness. 38.2%
The neutral feedback suggests a Agree
lack of understanding in the field, as
marketing automation is at the
cutting edge of digital sales and
Neutral
marketing software.
Disagree
Not Applicable

10. Could content marketing be used more
effectively in nurture programs?
1.8%
5.4%
21.4%
Q. To what extent do you agree with this
71.4% statement: We could make better use of
content marketing to nurture our prospects.
Agree
There has been an overwhelming
Neutral majority response here, only
1.8% of marketers believe that
Disagree no more could be done to better
nurture prospects with content.
Not
Applicable

11. Can sales and marketing work better
together? Q. To what extent do you agree with this
statement: Sales and marketing could work
together much more effectively with the right tools
and processes.
1.8%
There has been an overwhelming
majority response here, only 9% of
9.1% respondents believe that no more
could be done to kill the silos within
18.2% organisational structure and work
more effectively to meet acquisition.
70.9%
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Not Applicable

12. Has the role of marketing manager changed
in the new challenging digital environment?
1.8%
Q. To what extent do you agree with this
statement: The role of Marketing Manager has got
more complex and challenging with the increasing
16.4% use of digital marketing.
The majority agree, however we
23.6% 58.2% found the number of neutral and
disagreement responses interesting
– over 16% did not think marketing
Agree
managers roles were more
Neutral challenging. We are looking forward
Disagree to conducting more research into our
community to find out why this might
Not Applicable be.

13. More budget? Where would companies
invest?
(Other) 17.9% Q. What would you be most likely to invest in if
you had a greater budget?
More sales and
Marketing Tools 33.9%
& Software This was really interesting for us, we
expected more respondents to invest
More Marketing in more marketing people. However,
28.6%
People this is encouraging because it
indicates that people are open to the
thought of being more effective with
More Sales
19.6% the resource they have.
People
*Other = More marketing
0% 20% 40% activities/campaigns to engage,
product development, more content
and better sales engagement

14. We hope you found our survey
target360 useful…………
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Our marketing automation suite provides solutions to 5 Ensure efficiency and kill silos. Fully
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delivers 360° collaboration.
1) Time, lack of
2) Insufficient marketing to drive true engagement
3) Weak processes inhibiting the sales journey
4) “Tool challenged” minimizing ability to measure
effectiveness Engage and communicate in the right way,
5) Uncomfortable with current data management system to the right people at the right time. Email
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