ANNUITAS Reveals 2016 Enterprise B2B Demand Generation Research Study

11/15/16

B2B demand generation marketers are becoming more buyer-centric in their approach to demand generation, with more organizations using buyer personas and addressing customer pain points. That’s according to a recent survey conducted by ANNUITAS, a demand generation strategy and change management firm. The “2016 Enterprise B2B Demand Generation Research Study” focused on marketers in the B2B enterprise space with $250 Million or more in annual revenue. 

“This is the third year we have surveyed B2B Enterprise Marketers to get a better understanding of their approach to and success in the practice of demand generation and the results indicate the overall maturity of demand generation within organizations,” said Carlos Hidalgo, CEO and Principal of ANNUITAS. “This year we saw a nine percent increase in the number of organizations who state that they are seeing success in demand generation. Additionally, more and more organizations are involving sales teams in marketing strategy and taking a more holistic approach to understanding their buyers. Even with all the improvements, however, there are some areas, specifically measurement and content, that are still lagging.”

According to the study, this year saw an 11 percent increase in organizations who make buyer personas a standard part of their demand generation program, a 22 percent increase since 2014. In addition, there was a 10 percent increase in the number of organizations that are creating content directly related to their customer’s pain points and challenges.

The overwhelming majority of respondents are using lead nurturing as a part of their demand generation strategy, which is a 12 percent increase over last year, and more than half of the respondents are beginning to score their content based on buyer journey consumption rather than just grading all of it the same. “These responses reveal that marketers are becoming more aware of the process their buyers take to purchase and are trying to connect with their buyers by focusing on continuous engagement with them,” added Hidalgo.

Other significant findings from the 2016 survey include these observations:

While only 27 percent of marketing departments rated their team’s skills sets as “very effective,” it was an increase from the seven percent last year. Still, the results show a skills gap continues to be an issue for marketing teams.

A new question this year revealed that nearly 50 percent of all organizations are investing in formal training and enablement for their marketing teams, which should help address the skills gap challenge.

More and more organizations recognize the importance of marketing and sales having an agreement on lead qualification stages and definitions, with 67 percent of organizations having agreements, a seven percent increase over the 2015 study.

Nearly half of all enterprises have a centralized demand generation function within their organizations, which is an increase of more than 12 percent compared to last year’s study.

“We hope the results of this survey give marketers an idea of where their teams currently rank in terms of demand generation sophistication while illustrating the improvements that can be made,” said Hidalgo. “Achieving best-in-class results isn’t easy, but it can be done and this survey can serve as a motivation for marketers to transform their demand generation.”

The complete survey results will be shared via email to those who register through this link: http://lp.annuitas.com/study2016-Results.html.

About ANNUITAS

ANNUITAS is a Demand Generation Strategy and Change Management firm that helps B2B marketing and sales leaders at enterprise organizations build and execute demand generation that is more buyer-centric, revenue-optimized and operationally-minded. Known for its Demand Process? methodology, ANNUITAS works with clients to determine their demand strategy and implement processes that lead to self-sustainability and longer-term optimization. Learn more at http://www.ANNUITAS.com.

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