Firstly, Really B2B would like to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas! We love the festive season here and have spent a fair amount of time this week discussing the best Christmas song ever. It’s currently a two-horse race between ‘Fairytale of New York’ by The Pogues and Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas is you’.
Anyway, at this time of year it’s customary to reflect on the year about to end, and the new year about to begin. As B2B lead generation experts, we have a few predictions about what changes are likely to happen in the world of B2B marketing in 2013.
The first and most important of these predictions is that marketers will have an ever increasing requirement to prove their accountability over the next twelve months... with the numbers that really matter.
According to a recent report by the Fournaise Marketing Group - “80% of CEOs admit they are not very impressed with the work done by marketers”.
Ouch! But thankfully, there is a change coming. Over the next twelve months, marketers are going to become more accountable for revenue generation and see a notable difference in the way they operate. Updated key performance indicators, quotas and SLAs are all going to become part of the marketer’s everyday vocabulary and not just from a cost per lead basis, but cost per sale too.
As a way of meeting these new revenue targets, marketers will become more proficient at reporting and owning the sales and marketing analysis from the top of the funnel to the bottom.
It’s going to be a big change and one which makes an even bigger difference. Not necessarily to us here at Really B2B because our success has always been measured by sales. But, for those marketers yet to adopt this frame of mind, it’s time to get prepared.
Marketing for traffic and lead generation is great... but it’s sales and revenue that matter.
This is just one of the predictions we’ve made regarding marketing in the next twelve months. To check out our others, have a read of our Marketing Survival Guide for 2013.
Happy Holidays
