See what the top five priorities are for B2B sales and marketing leaders and why this year's focus is on the pipeline.
The data comes from the report The State of B2B Lead Management 2022, by LeanData, Sales Hacker, Heinz Marketing and Outreach.
According to the global survey of 1,732 B2B sales, marketing and operations professionals conducted in December 2021, B2B sales and marketing leaders found it more challenging to generate sufficient pipeline last year.
The difficulty in generating pipeline has even surpassed the challenge of managing different entry approaches in different markets and online channels. That’s why this year, these same leaders will be focused on pipeline generation.
Priorities for Marketing and Sales in 2022
Among the five Marketing and Sales priorities, pipeline growth is argentina whatsapp data the top priority, with nearly half (48.8%) of leaders looking to overcome the challenges of the past year.
This percentage is more than double the second-place priority, which is team building (22.4%). Other initiatives that, despite their smaller volume, are considered priorities for leaders are:
expand its addressable market (18.3%);
accelerate digital transformation (7.1%);
new investments in technology (3.5%).
Attention to the pipeline
According to data from another study, such attention to the pipeline is understandable, especially in the marketing area, as 82% of marketing professionals said they are measured by the sales pipeline they initiate and 78% reported being measured by the sales pipeline they influence.
In addition to the expected contribution from marketing, half of respondents faced challenges in increasing revenue in the last year. As a result, nearly 6 in 10 of them agree that sales and marketing teams are aligned to generate growth this year.
Marketing and Sales Integration
To achieve increased demand generation, B2B marketers are focused on better aligning their marketing and sales teams around go-to-market initiatives.
However, to achieve this goal, some leaders will need to make improvements to their systems and management processes. While half of those surveyed in the State of B2B survey believe their strategies provide a good experience for leads, more than a quarter are not so sure.
Additionally, a quarter of leaders disagree that their current lead management system will meet revenue goals this year. Only about 1 in 4 (27%) are confident that their current lead management strategy will meet 2022 goals.
The main problem is in the distribution of leads
6 in 10 leaders surveyed admit that they sometimes assign leads to the wrong owner. According to the report, 24.3% of respondents say the lead distribution process is slow and error-ridden.
The speed problem is strongly related to outdated and manual processes. Most do not use methods with marketing automation platforms or native attribution rules in CRM.
Respondents say process automation is the top lead management capability they would like to have but don’t yet have.