Survey: Majority of B2B Marketers Struggling with Lead Management

Marketing and sales professionals are spending time and energy generating leads, but new research suggests that they are not always in the best position to take advantage of these new opportunities.

The “State of Lead Management” survey from LeanData recently gathered information from 527 B2B marketing and sales professionals to hone in on their lead management skills. A total of 57 percent of respondents said that they were doubtful that their lead workflow was creating an ideal customer experience. About 80 percent claimed that they were unsatisfied with their current method of routing leads.

When asked about B2B marketing and sales alignment, 41.1 percent of respondents stated that their teams are not aligned. About 6.7 percent said they were unsure about their alignment.

“This highlights the age-old divide between sales and marketing,” wrote the authors of the report. “In the context of this survey, it also suggests that a key technical challenge to alignment is an inability to route leads to correct person within an organization.”

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Recent research has indicated that marketing and sales teams have different ideas of what is means to deliver new opportunities.

The “Business Performance Benchmark Study 2017” from Altify found that 40 percent of companies believe their marketing team delivers a reasonable amount of qualified sales opportunities. However, a larger percentage of marketers – 61 percent – said the same, signifying a difference in viewpoint.

In addition, 68 percent of B2B marketers claimed that they fully understand their company’s customers. Just 50 percent of sales team members said the same.