Last week, we wrote about the state of the marketing automation industry in 2014 and offered some questions for people to ask when considering purchasing a marketing automation software.
This week, we’ll take a look at a new study from Bizo and Oracle that looks at the value of marketing automation across various tactics in the sales cycle.
The most significant finding from the report was about marketing’s contribution to overall company revenue. The report found that for companies currently using marketing automation software, marketing contributes 20-60% of overall revenue.
This finding suggests that the days of ‘impressions’ and ‘branding’ as measures of marketing effectiveness are over. Using technology, marketing’s contribution can now be tied directly to hard numbers, which means that marketers can now be held more accountable than ever before.
Another key finding from the report has to do with lead nurturing. The report found that 94% of respondents use lead nurturing (taking into account that the respondents from this study were Bizo’s marketing database, “which naturally will over-represent companies currently using marketing technology”). 35% of those engaged in lead nurturing find the practice very important (“we couldn’t live without it”) and 58% find it somewhat important (“we have a few nurturing campaigns running”).
With the rise of lead nurturing and its perceived effectiveness, it would make sense that marketers are looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their nurturing campaigns. The study from Bizo suggests that one way companies are doing this is by taking a multi-channel approach. CMO of Bizo, David Karel, commented:
“Relying solely on email for lead nurturing is preventing B2B marketers from getting to the next level of business impact. With only five percent of website visitors willingly providing an email address, marketers’ need to find other channels or risk limiting nurturing efforts to a very small portion of their target audience. Multi-channel nurturing represents a massive opportunity to reach prospects beyond the inbox and really boost the return on their marketing spend.”
Read the entire report from Bizo here.
For more on using marketing automation for B2B sales and marketing, you can read 3 Tips for Leveraging B2B Marketing Automation in 2014.
