Almost half of B2B marketers are struggling to use data, both to drive decision-making and measure performance. It’s the biggest challenge they face, ahead of increasing growth targets and budget and staffing cuts.
That’s the key takeaway from a survey of over 500 U.S. and U.K. marketers issued by precision demand marketing platform Integrate. “These survey results indicate that despite economic challenges, B2B marketers are forging ahead and making do with the resources they have with a focus on their customer,” said John Follett, co-founder of Demand Metric which conducted the survey on behalf of Integrate.
Other findings. B2B marketers are striving for resilience in the face of economic pressures and the threat of burnout. Among other findings reported by the survey:
- 66% reported feeling burnout in the face of current challenges.
- Nevertheless, almost 70% felt optimistic or very optimistic about their team’s performance compared with six months earlier.
- The most favored strategy for optimizing for growth this year was marketing to existing customers (cross-sell/upsell; 57%).
- 35% cited technology as a focus for optimizing for growth.
- In the U.S., marketing ops and technology was the leading area where more spending was expected.
- The area most likely to face cuts? Field and event marketing.
Why we care. When it comes to data-driven B2B marketing, Integrate, as a B2B demand platform, has some skin in the game. Still, this survey supports previous research that finds B2B marketing teams stolidly optimistic in the face of very difficult times.
An infographic representing the results of the survey is here.
Dig deeper: Why B2B buyers now hate traditional B2B selling
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About the author
Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space.
He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020.
Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.
