50% of C-Suite Executives Want Marketers More Focused on Demand Gen

Most C-Suite executives have a certain perception of marketers and their team, and new research suggests that they believe their colleagues are falling short when it comes to sustaining their overall bottom line.

The CMO Council recently published the “C-Suite Scorecard” to gauge how C-Suite executives are gauging their marketing teams. Statistics indicated that the majority of respondents (50%) believe their marketers could improve or strengthen their demand generation and pipeline.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the same respondents (80%) said that they use revenue and sales growth to measure their marketing team’s value, contributions and performance metrics.

“The mandate is clear: marketing is expected to drive revenue,” wrote the authors of the report. “Marketers are now judged primarily based on their ability to produce demonstratable growth in revenue and sales.”

Marketers’ Continued Focus on the Customer Experience

Despite the pressure from C-Suite executives to focus on demand generation, previous research indicates that marketers remain concerned with the customer experience (CX).

Alchemer and Forrester conducted the “Why Customer Experience Programs Miss Their Mark” report, and data suggested that most marketers (86%) are still making improving CX a “high” or “critical” priority. This is followed by connecting their insights to action (80%), and improving the use of data and analytics (80%). In addition, 38% are boosting their defined CX budget.

About 78% claimed that they are focused on improving lead opportunities and lead quality over the next 12 months.