2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
4
6
8
13
15
Introduction
Executive Summary
Digital Marketing Importance & Goals
Digital Marketing Tactics
Digital Marketing Metrics
Market Understanding
28
31
32
Analyst Bottom Line
About Demandbase
About Demand Metric
25
27
Account-Based Marketing
Digital Marketing Challenges
30
Acknowledgements
19
Market Targets
33
Appendix – Survey Background
3. INTRODUCTION
Digital marketing has gone from being an exotic, new dish to a staple in every marketer’s diet. Every modern marketer knows that most marketing is digital, and that the set of available processes and channels to promote a product or service, or to build a brand, is vast. So vast, in fact, that even the term “digital marketing” has become too broad to represent all that happens under its definition. Demand generation, social media, content marketing, web analytics and other areas are so important that entire teams are being segmented from this broad category to provide the proper digital focus. Marketers are faced with the challenge of keeping up with new, hopefully better, strategies that emerge at a rapid rate, while cutting ineffective practices waning in popularity. It’s very valuable for marketers to have benchmark data about how the current digital marketing landscape looks, what’s new, what’s working and what isn’t. Quite often, marketers can gain a competitive advantage simply by being quick to adopt new digital marketing strategies in advance of mass adoption that eventually dilutes the impact of new things. This study, sponsored by Demandbase, took a close look at digital marketing to understand current practices, goals, strategies, metrics and effectiveness. Furthermore, the study investigated how well organizations understand their chosen markets, who in those markets they target as prospects and what their biggest challenges are in the pursuit of success. Finally, this report investigates a digital marketing strategy that is in the early-to-mid stages of adoption: Account- Based Marketing. This report details the findings and provides insights in each of these areas.
4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Today’s marketers have unprecedented challenges and opportunities when it comes to implementing digital marketing strategies. This survey was conducted to get a detailed picture of the current digital marketing landscape, helping marketers to make critical planning decisions and define areas for growth. A majority of this study’s participants were marketers in B2B organizations that reported revenue growth in the most recently completed fiscal year. Participants represented a wide range of industry affiliations and company sizes. The analysis of this study’s data provides these key findings about the current state of digital marketing:
New customer acquisition is the most common digital marketing goal. 84% of study participants, however, have multiple goals for their efforts.
The most frequently used digital marketing solutions are not the most effective ones. For example, analytics ranks first in effectiveness but third in usage. Two solutions with known effectiveness – lead scoring and A/B testing – rank last in usage.
Click-thrus and page views are the most commonly used metrics. The use of any metric is strongly related to better digital marketing effectiveness.
Better understanding of target markets relates to greater digital marketing effectiveness. 69% of study participants who claim a higher understanding of their target markets reported digital marketing as effective or very effective, compared to 59% with a lower target market understanding.
5. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Digital marketing effectiveness relates to revenue growth. 70% of study participants reporting effective digital marketing experienced revenue growth in the most recently completed fiscal year. Only 49% of participants whose revenue was flat or declining said their digital marketing efforts were effective.
The most important market target identified in this study was “prospect title”, but participants are investing more resources to target companies by industry or vertical than by prospect title.
Almost one-third of participants were unaware of Account Based Marketing, but those who use it report much greater digital marketing effectiveness. This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For more detail on the survey participants, please refer to the Appendix.
6. ABOUT DEMANDBASE
Demandbase is the first targeting and personalization platform for B2B, transforming the effectiveness of marketing programs and marketing’s ability to impact revenue. While personalization tools have long existed for B2C, until now, none were geared specifically to enable B2B marketers to make online interactions more effective, delivering the right message at the right time. Demandbase’s patented identification technology bridges the gap between known and anonymous web visitors by identifying and segmenting the companies visiting a website, and providing detailed, targetable business attributes in real-time. Demandbase integrates with other sales and marketing technologies to deliver unique intelligence about web visitors, and better attract, convert and retain the right customers. Enterprise leaders and high-growth companies alike use Demandbase to drive better marketing performance. For more information, visit www.demandbase.com.
7. ABOUT DEMAND METRIC
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership community of over 50,000 marketing professionals and consultants in 75 countries. Offering consulting methodologies, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing tools and templates, Demand Metric resources and expertise help the marketing community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about their work with authority and conviction and complete marketing projects more quickly and with greater confidence, boosting the respect of the marketing team and making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed. To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit: www.demandmetric.com. To read the rest of this report, become a Demand Metric member today!
