Gleanster Research and Act-On Software sought to answer these questions. We conducted a study in Q4 2014 and Q1 2015, surveying marketing professionals in 750 companies to understand how they perceive and support customer relationship management. For the purposes of this study, we defined CRM as: Any iteraction a customer has with your brand across all stages of the customer lifecycle.
Regression analysis: Simple Linear Regression Multiple Linear Regression
Rethinking the Role of Marketing
1. Ian Michiels
Principal Analyst & CEO
Gleanster Research
Featured Speakers:
WEBINAR
Rethinking the Role of Marketing
An innovative look at the evolving link between Marketing and the end-to-end customer lifecycle
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Atri Chatterjee
CMO
Act-On Software
2. Rethinking the Role of Marketing
in B2B Customer Engagement
Key Findings from over 750 Marketers in Midsize B2B Firms
Ian Michiels
Principal & CEO
Gleanster Research
3. Agenda
Setting the Stage: The Ultimate Hypothesis
The Many Key Findings from the Survey
Practical Recommendations for Marketers
4. What’s
keeping you
up at night?
Empowered & Educated Buyers
Too Many Marketing Channels
Sales and Marketing Alignment
Lack of Time / Resources / Budget
Technology Fragmentation
LEADS & OPPORTUNITY CREATION
Difficulty with Attribution
Improve the Customer Experience
Marketing Executive
5. What’s
keeping you
up at night?
The customer experience is the sum total of all
interactions a prospect or customer has with a
brand.
Marketing
Sales
Service
CustomerExperience
Marketing Executive
Partners & Affiliates
Improve the Customer Experience !?!
6. A Litany
of Nebulous
Concepts
Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
Customer Experience
Customer Engagement
Customer Lifecycle
Customer Journey
Who is actually responsible for:
8. Key
Questions to
Explore
What is the state of CRM and
marketing’s role in CRM?
How do marketers perceive their role in
managing the customer lifecycle?
What are the major challenges with
managing customer engagement?
Benchmark best practices and tactics
used TODAY
9. Key Finding
Given what we know Top Performers are
doing, it’s time to re-think the role of
marketing in customer lifecycle engagement.
Ramifications on:
Measurement & Attribution
Technology
Compensation
Strategy & Tactics
REVENUE!
11. All results are biased by marketers
perceptions.
Performance data is self-reported
and anonymous.
12. Identifying
Top
Performers
Apply filters to the data and analyze how a
subset of companies answered specific questions.
AVERAGE B2B FIRM
B2B
50-1000 Employees
All others excluding Top
Performers
TOP PERFORMERS
Top 2%
B2B
50-1000 Employees
Beat 2013 Revenue Objectives
“Very Effective” at managing end-
to-end marketing lifecycle
Estimate >90% of customers are
happy
Only 2% of respondents (15) companies did a “good” job at customer
lifecycle engagement in marketing!?!
13. Here’s how
the story
unfolds:
1. What is the current state of affairs in
customer lifecycle engagement?
2. What does customer lifecycle success
look like?
3. What can we learn from these findings?
14. Marketers don’t feel like they
are “primarily responsible” for
managing the customer
lifecycle.
20. Marketers are
Generally
Confident –
But is it
Justified
Are You Effective At Managing The
End-to-end Customer Experience?
37% 50% 13%
Very
Effective Effective
Not
Effective
56% 44%
Very
Effective Effective
AVERAGE
TOP PERFORMERS
21. Top Performers allocate more
time and effort on retention and
expansion.
Top Performers spend more on
awareness and up-selling.
22. How much
time, effort,
and budget
are allocated
to different
stages?
Average Companies
spend
Effort acquiring new customers:
Average companies spend 67%
Top Performers spend 52%
Average Companies
spend
Budget acquiring new customers: Average companies spend 54%
Top Performers spend 46%
23. Why
Marketers
Should Focus
on
Retention?
1. Finite products and services = Finite
campaigns
2. You can automate campaigns with
behavioral data to up-sell to
existing customers
3. Attribution to real revenue!
26. Top challenges remain virtually the
same as they did 10 years ago.
Themes: People, Process, Technology
27. What are the
top challenges
that cause you
to struggle
with current
marketing
objectives?
58%
60%
73%
80%
83%
90%
95%
Our processes are inefficient
We don't collect the right
customer data
Internal skills and expertise
Limitations with current
technologies
Fragmented marketing systems
Marketing alignment with sales
Access to existing customer data
All Respondents
34. Marketers are in an ideal
position to manage and optimize
the end-to-end customer
lifecycle.
Marketers aren’t compensated
appropriately for the effort.
35. Three key
findings:
1. Marketing technology is the central conduit
for monitoring, measuring, and engaging with
customers across the entire customer
lifecycle.
2. There is currently a massive misalignment of
efforts at average B2B mid-size firms.
Nobody is actually accountable for
optimizing the holistic customer lifecycle.
3. The customer lifecycle needs a leader.
36. Managing the customer lifecycle is
very difficult with fragmented
technologies.
B2B companies still rely heavily on
legacy technologies like stand-alone
email.
38. Other
Marketing
Automation
Trends in the
Research
2010-Present
Marketing automation helps to activate customer
data (implicit & explicit) because it unifies
fragmented channels.
Top Performers are typically 5-7x more likely to
use marketing automation.
Marketing automation allows marketers to
automate campaigns that capture more revenue
from customers.
Companies report an average of 120% boost in
sales-ready leads as a result of MA.
Marketing automation makes CRM more valuable
and encourages reps to use CRM.
39. Top Performers are 2x more likely to
use behavioral data to trigger
engagement.
BUT the vast majority of companies
struggle with relevance.
40. How are
companies
leveraging
personalization?
29%
39%
45%
36%
42%
39%
38%
56%
63%
63%
75%
75%
0% 50% 100%
Segmentation with psychographic
attributes (interests)
Segmentation with demographic
attributes (industry, role)
Segmentation with purchase
history data
Personalizing customer campaigns
with CRM data
Adjust messaging based on
prospect behavior
Personalizing messaging by stage
in the customer lifecycle
Top Performers Average
42. Prioritize
Customer
Engagement
Efforts
Overcome the desire to cast the net wide
Struggling with segmentation in existing
marketing tools – use CRM data to isolate
trends sales conversions
Identify 1-5 target audiences
Refine content efforts to proven
segments
Only 50% of B2B firms had a blog
43. Move from
static
campaigns to
behavior-
based and
segmented
engagement.
6 out of 10 companies used marketing
automation
The right tools are not being used effectively
-or- the right tools don’t exist
87%
67%
13%
33%
0% 50% 100%
Top Performers
Average
Yes No
47. Additional
Recommendations
Focus on new customer acquisition AND
engagement with existing customers
Partner with an agency to get specialized help &
step up your game
Segment and personalize to improve engagement
Marketers need to step up and showcase their
impact on the end-to-end customer lifecycle.
Make a case for more budget, financial incentives,
and attribution.
48. Summary
Findings
1 There is a massive misalignment of efforts
and objectives at average B2B mid-size firms.
2 The customer lifecycle needs a leader
3 Marketing technology is key to monitoring,
measuring, and engaging with customers across the entire
lifecycle