Corporate marketing budgets dropped from 11% of company revenue in 2020 to merely 7.7% this year. 📉
Gartner‘s annual CMO spend survey clearly reveals a troubled market in a global economy, with labor, martech software, and 3rd party costs going up in favor of overcompensating with paid ads.
– SEM, social paid, and digital display lead the charts for online
– Event marketing, sponsorships, and TV represent the offline spend
Cutting labor and software costs is what I’ve been reporting here for 18 months now. The sustainable paid media market desperately attempts to find the buyers’ pulse and get the pipeline in order.
(It doesn’t work when buyers are not buying).
🤔 And how many of them can measure the real ROI of their marketing efforts?
The reality is, many B2B businesses struggle with the same challenges:
– Insufficient data and analytics
– Lack of understanding of buyer journeys
– Not enough alignment between Sales and Marketing teams
– Ineffective lead generation strategies
Without proper measurement, companies can’t know which campaigns to invest more in and which to cut. Data-driven marketing is the key to improving ROI.
But, what does this really mean?
– Investing in data enrichment and analytics tools
– Empowering teams to understand and map buyer journeys
– Aligning Sales and Marketing KPIs to ensure everyone is working towards the same goals
– Leveraging AI and predictive analytics to identify the best leads
Only when investing in these areas can companies optimize their lead generation, improve conversion rates, and increase revenue.
So, the next time someone says “B2B marketing doesn’t work”, remember: it’s not the strategy that failed, but the execution.
