Email marketing is the B2B demand-generation strategy that most relies on data. But it might suffer by extension from general data issues, judging by Using Data To Drive Demand, a new study from Act-On Software, conducted by Ascend2.
Only 20% of marketers rate themselves as very successful (or best in class), the study finds, while 73% say they are somewhat successful.
Put another way, only 34% are certain that the quality of their data allows them to make effective decisions on where to spend marketing dollars or sales resources. Another 54% are somewhat confident.
Moreover, a mere 32% have enough data to make those calls, while 49% are at least partly sure they have it.
The greatest data-driven challenges are:
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All that said, 44% strongly agree that demand generation is significantly improved when a data-driven strategy is used, and 51% moderately concur. The remainder disagree, only 1% strongly so.
Meanwhile, here are the tactics that are affected most by data-driven marketing:
And, in general, data-driven demand generation offers these benefits:
How are B2B brands deploying data-driven demand-generation? They are using:
Ascend2 surveyed 115 B2B marketers as part of its recent Using Data to Drive Demand survey. Of those polled, 23% work in companies with more than 500 employees, 30% in firms with 50 to 500 and 47% in outfits with fewer than 50.