Tight Budgets Identified as Main Barrier to B2B Digital Marketing Success

The “2016 State of B2B Digital Marketing” survey from Ascend2 and Marketo revealed the most significant barrier to B2B digital marketing success is an inadequate marketing budget. However, despite this and other challenges, 84 percent of B2B marketers believe their strategies are successful.

An additional 39 percent of respondents cited a lack of internal skills and training as the most significant barrier, and 36 percent said a lack of effective strategy was a barrier to digital marketing success.

When it comes to measuring effectiveness, the survey results showed that the most important goals of a B2B digital marketing strategy include increasing lead generation (64 percent), increasing conversion rate (49 percent), improving data and lead quality (42 percent) and improving brand awareness (42 percent).

According to researchers, “B2B marketing is generally focused on supporting – not replacing – the sales effort,” which explains why lead generation is an important goal.

The most effective B2B digital marketing tactics to support these goals include email, website, and SEO.

The most difficult tactics to execute are social media (54 percent), SEO (45 percent), and mobile (36 percent).

B2B Marketers Remain Focused on Leads

Similar to Marketo’s findings, DemandWave’s recently published “2016 State of B2B Digital Marketing Report” found that the majority of digital marketers (66 percent) consider driving more sales through quality leads as their top priority for the fifth year in a row.

More B2B marketers are also focusing more on delivering quality leads (38 percent) as opposed to quantity of leads (28 percent). A couple of challenges for marketers include measuring and proving the ROI of digital marketing efforts and delivering quality leads.