Over three-quarters of B2B marketers see digital marketing transformation (DMT) as a complex strategy to execute, with barriers such as expense holding them back, according to research.
Some 81% of B2B companies think that pursuing DMT is important for their companies, rising to 91% for larger enterprises, but many still have a way to go according to a new report by B2B Marketing and Stein IAS.
The report, Accelerating your digital marketing transformation: B2B leaders share their journeys, reveals Stein’s first quantitative study of 450 senior marketers into how B2B brands are undertaking their transformation journeys.
The research also shows that the ability for marketing to directly contribute to revenue growth and the ability to deliver a connected customer experience from brand, to demand, to in-life are the biggest drivers of DMT.
As well as quantitative research, the report also features insights into how senior leaders have approached their own strategies, with case studies from Emma Parker at Ingredion, Eric Andrews at Oracle, Gary Hurry at Thomson Reuters, and Paul Stevenson at O2.
Speaking about his digital marketing transformation journey in the report, Eric Andrews, senior director product development, Oracle, said: “Buyers are delaying engaging with sellers until much later in the funnel because they can do their own research online – so marketing in general and digital marketing in particular have become more important. Oracle competes with the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft, so we need to be faster and more consistent. The only way to do this is to digitally transform our marketing.”
Marc Keating, chief innovation officer, Stein IAS, said: “Our study results strongly indicate that, along with intense interest in DMT, there are significant challenges in navigating complexity, prioritising investment and realising the benefits. In many instances, DMT has evolved in a more tactical and agile way, as opposed to starting with a prioritised roadmap aligned with business objectives … it’s evident the industry lacks solid frameworks and models to guide effective DMT maturity measurement, benchmarking and strategic vision setting.”
