Survey: Market Rewards B2B Predictive Marketers

Business-to-business marketers who use predictive analytics are rewarded with better revenue and market position, according to a recent Forrester Consulting survey. The study tapped 150 respondents from market-leading B2B firms in a range of industries, dividing them into predictive marketers, those using modeled data for forecasting and scoring, and "retrospective marketers" without predictive analytics. The survey, commissioned by predictive marketing firm EverString, found that B2B predictive marketers are 2.9 times more likely to have revenue growth above the industry average, 2.1 times more likely to occupy a commanding leadership position in their product/service market, and 1.8 times more likely to exceed company goals when compared with retrospective marketers. No wonder 89% of the B2B marketers interviewed included predictive analytics in their 2016 plans, either initiating or expanding implementation! Some 49% already used predictive marketing, 44% said they planned to expand or upgrade existing predictive implementation, and 40% planned to initiate predictive efforts within 12 months. Equally interesting, most of the marketers (78%) saw a shift in their role from demand generation to deal acceleration, requiring involvement in the sales cycle beyond pouring leads into the top of the funnel. And here is where predictive marketers led retrospective counterparts again. Predictive marketers showed effectiveness across the customer life cycle, with 49% listing two or more customer discovery tasks (building brand equity, audience targeting, identifying best account types, etc.) among their top three best practices, balanced by 51% including two or more tasks from later in the sales cycle (such as qualifying leads and managing the end-to-end customer experience). Retrospective marketers focused mainly on customer discovery in naming their top three best practices (70%). Marketing success with any stage in the sales cycle is still all about the data, however. Predictive and retrospective marketers agreed that their two biggest marketing challenges were ensuring quality data from a variety of sources (47%) and managing data from a variety of sources (47%). For a Forbes magazine summary with a link to the full report: http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/01/24/89-of-b2b-marketers-have-predictive-analytics-on-their-roadmaps-for-2016/#147e0488d291