Atlanta—Nov. 16, 2015—Almost 45 percent of business-to-business (B2B) enterprise marketers don’t use buyer personas in their demand generation programs and nearly half of content marketers don’t align content to their buyer’s pain points. That’s according to recent survey conducted by ANNUITAS, a demand generation strategy and change management firm. The 2015 Enterprise B2B Demand Generation Research Study focused on marketers in the B2B enterprise space with more than 2,000 employees, and $250 million or more in annual revenue.
“The study found that more than 75 percent of surveyed enterprise companies do have a content marketing strategy in place, but many of them are not applying all the best practices to understand their buyers and address their needs,” said Carlos Hidalgo, CEO and principal of ANNUITAS. “This is the second year we have conducted this survey and, again, we have discovered that enterprise-level companies are struggling to effectively use and apply demand generation strategies and technology.”
One reason for this may be that less than half of those surveyed have a dedicated demand generation department to oversee all demand generation activities and only 13 percent of respondents said their marketing personnel were effective in executing demand generation strategies. As a result, more than 27 percent of respondents say they don't have time to review their demand generation key performance indicators (KPIs) on a regular basis. This means that, even though the data is generated, it’s not analyzed and optimized to leverage performance.
According to Hidalgo, enterprise-level companies are scrambling to market effectively to B2B buyers and are facing many challenges when it comes to optimizing their use of demand generation. “Companies are spending millions of dollars on demand generation and content marketing tactics, and for so many to fall short of the desired results is a serious problem. This survey is an important tool to understand to benchmark where enterprise organizations are and identify what problems continue, so companies can focus on improving the application and performance of their demand generation programs.”
Other significant findings from the 2015 survey include these observations:
- More than 65 percent of marketers don't create content that speaks to every member of the buying committee.
- More than 24 percent still don't define the purchase process of the buyer.
- Less than 50 percent put lead scoring value on their content based on where it falls in the purchase process.
- More than 40 percent of those running lead-nurturing campaigns treat it as a separate component of their demand generation strategy and only 35 percent of them are creating content specific to lead nurturing.
“Understanding the strategies and results of B2B enterprise marketers helps us benchmark ourselves and our organizations better,” said Hidalgo. “This survey allows us to understand how B2B enterprises are succeeding in their marketing efforts, as well as showing us what areas still need attention and improvement.”
