Last updated on December 15th, 2015 at 03:44 pm
A majority of B2B marketers are now responsible for driving revenues, but marketing-generated leads account for most sales rejections, says a new study by 6sense, a predictive intelligence firm for B2B marketing and sales.
The reported, entitled “2015 Survey of B2B Marketers“, looked at 321 B2B marketing professionals in the U.S. with director-level or higher titles. Report authors discovered that more than two-thirds (70 percent) of B2B marketers are now measured based on the amount of revenues they generate using their marketing and lead generation programs.
The study results found that 60 percent of the survey participants are measured on quality and 70 percent are measured on quantity. This doesn’t bode well for marketing professionals since sales teams reject 80 percent of their leads.
“It is clear from these survey results that, more than ever before, marketers are on the hook for ROI, and their needs go beyond what most predictive solutions have been offering,” said Amanda Kahlow, CEO and Founder of 6sense, in a statement.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers in terms of lead generators? They named lack of resources (61 percent), lack of high-quality data (42 percent) and lack of target audience insight (38 percent).
Predictive Analytics a Tool for Marketers
Despite the power of predictive analytics tools, fewer than one-third (31 percent) of B2B marketers say they use predictive analytics to enhance their lead conversion rates.
When looking at the respondents who use this tool, 83 percent have been utilizing predictive analytics for less than two years. Marketers are mostly taking advantage of demographic and firmographic data and content engagements on their websites to qualify prospects. Some of these data points consist of buyer profile information, recent website activity and company profile information.
For those not using the predictive analytics, more than half (54 percent) plan to invest in the next 12 to 36 months. The primary goals for using predictive analytics include increasing the overall lead quality (68 percent), increasing the volume of qualified leads (64 percent) and increasing the number of sales-qualified leads (54 percent).
One of the glaring problems is in the realm of predictive analytics matching marketers’Â needs and priorities. Some of these include identifying new prospects, knowing where prospects are in the sales funnel and understanding what products these prospects are reviewing.
“Understanding timing and getting more visibility into buyers is what will solve this issue – and that requires time-sensitive, unstructured activity data on a mass scale,” said Kahlow.
“Predictive solutions that simply rank and score leads based on ideal buyer ‘fit’ or static data — company and contact attributes — and limited engagement with a company’s content assets are missing the billions of external buying signals proven to increase the accuracy of predictive models. These static attributes tell you if the contact and company is the right buyer, not if they have a need for your product now. Timing isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
This report comes as a new study found that the predictive analytics market will be worth more than $9 billion within the next four years. Experts say this is unfolding before our eyes as companies transition from business intelligence (BI) into more advanced analytics measures.
Photo via Flickr, Creative Commons
