This document summarizes key findings from a survey of nearly 4,000 marketing leaders worldwide about trends in marketing. Three main findings are: 1. High-performing marketing teams adopt a customer journey strategy and lead customer experience initiatives across their business. 2. Digital marketing ROI is increasing, especially for email, social media, mobile and content marketing. High performers take sophisticated approaches to digital channels. 3. Successful marketers align digital channels like mobile, social and email with their overall marketing strategy and target ads using customer data.

1. Trends and insights from nearly 4,000
marketing leaders worldwide
State of
Marketing
2016

2. Vala Afshar
Chief Digital Evangelist, Salesforce
Author, Huffington Post blogger, co-host of
DisrupTV, and previously CMO Extreme Networks
and CMO/CCO Enterasys Networks
Twitter: @ValaAfshar

3. What we were looking for:
Overall trends changing the role
of marketing
How high performers approach
the customer journey and
experience
Key insights on primary digital
marketing channels
Nearly 4,000 Marketing Leaders Surveyed Worldwide
Exclusive to marketers holding leadership roles
1706
353
1190
726

4. About the Respondents
Self-identified according to performance level
Respondents identified as…
High Performers
“Extremely satisfied” with the
current outcomes of their company’s marketing investment
Moderate Performers
“Very or moderately satisfied” with the current outcomes of
their company’s marketing investment
Underperformers
“Slightly or not at all satisfied” with the current outcomes
of their company’s marketing investment
18%
68%
14%

5. 24%
33%
Customer Satisfaction Revenue Growth Customer Acquisition
Customer Experience is the Holy Grail
Customer satisfaction is the number one success metric for marketers
Marketing is about
building and
sustaining customer
relationships.
35%

6. Executive Team Commitment
Unconditional buy-in from company leaders
Marketing-Prioritized Budgets
Walk the talk with marketing investments
Marketing Agility
Optimize marketing activities as
customer preferences change
The Makings of a High-Performing Marketing Team
Three traits of successful marketing organizations

7. Ideas are commodity. Execution is art.
High performing marketing
teams are 2.6x
more likely to have complete
executive team commitment
to overall marketing strategy.

8. Marketing Agility
Optimize marketing activities as customer preferences change
3%
18%
67%
Underperformers
Moderate Performers
High Performers
Of marketers who rate their marketing
agility as excellent… High performers are
24.4x
more likely than underperformers
to rate their marketing agility
as excellent

9. 1 Adopt a customer journey strategy
2 Lead the customer experience across your business
3 Digital Marketing ROI is on the Rise
4 Align Digital channels with your overall strategy
5 Go mobile: be a cross-channel as your customers
6 CRM is Powering More Effective Advertising
6 key takeaways
Customer Experience is the Future of Marketing

10. Prioritize the Customer
Journey or Risk Falling
Behind
K E Y TA K E AWAY
01 |

11. Why a Customer Journey?

12. Product
Marketing
App
Online
Events
Sales
Retail
Care
Customers Expect Unified and Relevant Experiences
The sum of those experiences is the customer journey

13. 65%
67%
70%
70%
73%
Customer churn rates
Customer satisfaction scores
Revenue growth
Customers' willingness to recommend products/services
Customer engagement
Marketers who strongly agree or agree that a customer journey
strategy has positively impacted:
High-Performing Marketers Adopt a Customer Journey Strategy
88% say a customer journey is critical to their marketing success

14. High-Performance
Marketing Teams Lead
CX Across the Business
K E Y TA K E AWAY
02 |

15. High-Performing Marketers Lead the Customer Experience
Nearly 8x more likely to lead customer experience and digital transformation
8%
8%
21%
23%
58%
63%
Leading customer experience across their business
Implementing digital transformation company-wide
Marketing leaders who strongly agree that they’re…
High Performers Moderate Performers Underperformers

16. Top Marketers Lean on CRM Tools
Alignment of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service Key to Success

17. Top Marketing Teams Create a Single View of the Customer
Marketing, Sales, Services and R&D Lean-Into CRM

18. Collaboration is Key to the Customer Experience
High-performing marketing teams are excellent collaborators

19. Digital Marketing ROI is
on the Rise
K E Y TA K E AWAY
03 |

20. Everything is Awesome!

21. 54%
79%
Generates ROI
Marketing leaders who agree that email…
2015 2016
More Marketers Agree Email Generates ROI
79% now agree—up nearly 50% from 2015

22. 150 million emails sent
20 million WhatsApp messages
2.78 million YouTube views
2.4 million Google searches
701K Facebook logins
527K Snapchat photos
347K Twitter posts
Email dominates Internet traffics

23. High Performers Take Sophisticated Approaches to Email
Send the same email with
unique content based on
audience segment
48%
Trigger personalized emails in
real time based on events
32%
Personalize emails with
subscriber fields
63%
Leverage predictive
intelligence/data science to
create personalized emails
40%

24. Social Leaps Ahead as an ROI Creator
82% of marketers agree that social media marketing is core to their business.
28%
75%
Generates ROI
Marketing leaders who agree that social…
2015 2016

25. Educate. Inspire. Ignite.
80% of high performing teams publish content at least 2-3 times per week
(versus 16% for underperformers)
High performing marketing teams
are 3.4x more likely to
say content marketing generates
significant ROI.
High performing marketing teams
are 8.6x more likely to
use social listening tools.

26. Mobile ROI Soars in 2016
77% of marketing leaders seeing direct ROI on mobile—up 147% from 2015
31%
77%
Generates ROI
Marketing leaders who agree that mobile…
2015 2016

27. Multichannel Digital
Marketing Determines
Success
K E Y TA K E AWAY
04 |

28. High-Performing Marketing Teams See Cross-Channel Success
Of those who’ve integrated their digital channels, 95% rate it effective or very effective
63%
64%
60%
28%
29%
25%
20%
19%
Integrated social media activity into overall marketing
strategy
Integrated email marketing activity with overall
marketing strategy
Integrated mobile marketing activity into overall
marketing strategy
Marketing leaders who strongly agree they’re…
Underperformers Moderate Performers High Performers
12%

29. High-Performing Marketers Align Across Channels
81%
of high-performing marketing
teams align their mobile
campaigns to email campaigns
compared to 46% of
underperforming marketers
82%
of high-performing marketing
teams consider advertising on
social platforms to be part of their
mobile marketing efforts.

30. Mobile marketing on
the rise
K E Y TA K E AWAY
05 |

31. Mobile Marketing Hits Triple-Digit Growth
79% of marketing leaders agree that mobile marketing is core to their business.

32. Mobile Marketing On the Rise in 2016
Marketers embracing mobile as both a marketing channel and platform
61%
56%
52%
50%
74%
70%
67%
64%
Mobile Applications
Mobile Text Messaging (SMS)
Mobile Push Notifications
Location-Based Mobile Tracking
Marketing leaders who currently use or plan to use in the
next 12 months…
2015 2016

33. CRM Powering More
Effective Advertising
K E Y TA K E AWAY
06 |

34. Scaling the customer journey

35. 60%
21%
4%
Top Marketers Create a Single View of the Customer
13.7x more likely to integrate systems supporting single view
Marketers who agree they’ve integrated
business systems to create
a single view of the customer…
High Performers Moderate Performers Underperformers

36. More Marketers Advertise on Social than Other Digital Outlets
At least 2/3 of marketers agree these digital ad strategies are very effective
54%
54%
62%
65%
18%
21%
17%
17%
Native advertising
Video advertising
Display/banner ads
Advertising on social
Marketing leaders who currently use or plan to use…
Currently use Plan to use in the next 12 months
Rate as Very
Effective
71%
66%
72%
66%

37. Data-Driven Advertising Takes Center Stage
Marketers zero in on ad targeting and personalization
83%
marketing leaders use customer
data to target or segment
advertising

38. Keys to Becoming a High-Performing Marketer
Our recommendations
Adopt a
customer journey
strategy
01 | Align digital
channels with
your overall
strategy
03 |Lead the
customer
experience
across your
business
02 |
Go Mobile: Be as
cross-channel as
your customers
04 | Target ads with
customer data
05 |

39. salesforce.com/stateofmarketing
2016 State of Marketing