id33b1: New Report Shows UK Marketers Need Focus On Building Pipeline

vineri, 27 iulie 2012

New Report Shows UK Marketers Need Focus On Building Pipeline

New Report Shows UK Marketers Need Focus On Building Pipeline

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 04:05 AM PDT

by Sylvia Jensen |

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First, the good news: UK marketers recognize the value of measuring. Most are even doing some form of measurement.

Now the bad news: Less of us are focused on one of the most important marketing metrics – building an attributable pipeline for sales. Even fewer are tracking it.

According to a new report from the Aberdeen Group, 83% of UK-based companies see value in tracking lead conversion rates. 63% of those same businesses are using metrics on conversion rates.
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But only 58% of UK marketers rank tracking marketing's contribution to sales forecasted pipeline as valuable, and just 43% are actually measuring it.
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When you consider that 78% of Best-in-Class companies are measuring marketing's contribution to sales pipeline, you get a sense of the emerging gap in the UK.

Obviously, measuring lead conversions is important. But it's mainly a marketing-focused metric. Modern marketing doesn't function in a silo. For UK marketers to truly provide data on the impact to the organization, they need to track their efforts effect on sales. This is the next step in aligning marketing with sales, and a critical step on the path to Revenue Performance Management.

In order for businesses to track their impact on sales, they need to invest in tools and methodologies to close the loop on their reporting. This leads to another gap between Best-in-Class and UK marketers. While 89% of these top-performing companies are using reporting and analytics through marketing automation, compared to 68% of UK firms.

Forecasting the value of the funnel requires knowing the percentage of marketing leads that are qualified, accepted and closed by sales, the Aberdeen notes. This data is what makes optimization at various stages of the marketing cycle possible.

For more in depth data and analysis, you can download Aberdeen Group’s study Revenue Performance Management Demystified for UK Companies for free.

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New Report Shows UK Marketers Need Focus On Building Pipeline is from Eloqua's It's All About Revenue, a Blog Covering Business To Business Marketing