“The rapid disruption of marketing technologies and strategies over the last few quarters have impacted every conversation about lead generation and a robust sales funnel. The digitization of enterprises that followed the pandemic has completely changed the way that companies and markets work.
“This digital focus has been forcing us to adopt newer tools and tactics for an effective Lead Evaluation and Assurance Process (LEAP). It has changed how demand generation works; and marketers and sales leaders like us need to stay ahead of the curve to succeed in this quicksilver marketplace,” says Lee Salem, vice president of sales at WM America, which collaborated with CMO Council on “Fire Up Your Revenue Generation Engine.” The report, released last month, covers models and metrics for tracking and measuring performance, best practice demand-gen execution, ways to score effectiveness, and more.
Seeding and harvesting the sales pipeline — the process of acquiring, capturing, qualifying and converting business opportunities — are essential to the growth and profitability of B2B marketers across every industry and geographic sector. Marketing is largely responsible for driving this business process, yet nearly two-thirds of lead gen and engagement strategies are underperforming.
The latest CMO Council research finds scores of marketers falling behind in lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing. Among the key findings from a Q4 survey of more than 170 B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution leaders is the fact that 64% say their lead gen and engagement strategy underperforms.
The CMO Council’s research revealed the top five skill sets contributing to improved ABM-driven business outcomes:
- Better segmentation and precision targeting of buyers and influencers;
- On-demand customer business intelligence and personal buyer insights;
- Tighter integration of demand gen, channel, direct sales, and support teams;
- Greater utilization of tools and data sources for richer prospect profiling; and
- Proactive and timely pre-sales follow-up and cultivation strategies.
The CMO Council has uncovered widening gaps in performance between highly evolved marketers and lesser evolved marketers. Gaps are occurring in four core capabilities: lead scoring, account-based marketing, accelerated pipeline, and intention-based marketing.
This report tiers factors that make up a model for better identification, engagement and conversion. The model coincides with the CMO Council and WM America’s thought leadership initiative to advance lead revenue science practices through a certified Lead Evaluation and Assurance Process, or LEAP model. “Marketers will need to take a few LEAPs of faith in the coming months, because sticking to the status quo is just not practical or possible anymore. As data becomes more critical than ever before, CMOs need to extend their visions for innovation and forward-thinking strategies,” Salem says.
“Using AI-derived, intention-based buyer data and advanced sales intelligence are among the ways growth marketers bring more precision, predictability and performance to B2B account marketing investments,” says CMO Council executive director Donovan Neale-May.
Ten Metrics that Matter
| Sales Conversion across Channels | 18% |
| Traditional Metrics (e.g., Relevance, Volume, Cost, Reach, Response) | 12% |
| Deal Value, Timeliness, Actionability | 10% |
| Incidence and Deal Value – Internal and Partners | 9% |
| Selling Cycle Compression | 8% |
| Customer Economics (e.g., Deal Value, Profitability) | 8% |
| Contact, Conversational and Closure Success | 8% |
| Website Visits and Content Consumption | 7% |
| Brand Awareness, Recognition, Trust | 7% |
| Inquiries and E-Commerce Mementum | 5% |
13 Roadblocks to Identification, Engagement, Conversion
| Opportunity Quality, Conversation, Revenue Potential | 10% |
| Speed, Efficiency, Timeliness of Lead Qualification | 10% |
| Rigor, Discipline, Process for Automation and Accountability | 9% |
| Lead Nurturing Systems and Scoring Practices | 9% |
| Moving Opportunities through Every Stage | 9% |
| Pipeline Visibility and Funnel Effectiveness | 8% |
| Customer Modeling, Targeting, Prioritization | 8% |
| Volume and Caliber of Opportunities Delivered | 7% |
| Cultivation, Conversion and Closure Disciplines | 7% |
| Measurements of Lead Value | 6% |
| Lead Obsolescence, Deliverability and Decay | 6% |
| Predisposition and Actionability of Prospects | 5% |
| Conversational Strategies and Consultative Approaches | 5% |
Who Is Driving Demand Gen for Companies Today?
| Internal Marketing Teams | 20% |
| SaaS Platform Provider | 13% |
| Advertising or Marketing Agency | 12% |
| Digital Marketing Consultancy | 10% |
| Data-Based Marketing Companuy | 8% |
| Contractor or Freelancer | 8% |
| Outbound Telemarketing Center | 7% |
| Specialist List/Lead Source | 7% |
Methodology
The report is based on a survey of over 170 heads of B2B marketing, sales, revenue, growth, demand gen and campaign execution in Q4 2023. It also included content from in-depth interviews with executives from Netline, Autodesk, T-Mobile, NTT, ABM Consortium, TechTarget, IBM, B2B Marketing, Reachdesk, Momentum ITSMA and Xometry.
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council’s 16,000+ members control more than $1 trillion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide.
WM America is a leading B2B marketing company specializing in targeted in-market demand generation. The intent database at WMA tracks the intent behavior of more than 75 million business professionals globally, 24/7.
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