B2B Marketing’s Global tech marketing trends, written in conjunction with Kingpin, has revealed reporting and analysis are by far the biggest drains on marketers’ time, taking around a third of working hours consistently across all regions. This is significantly more than content management, the second most time-intensive task, which occupied 18% of marketers’ working hours, and more than double that of data management in third place (occupying only 14% of marketers’ time).
There were few regional anomalies in the response to this question. Event management took up 11% of marketers’ time in NA (almost double that of other regions). While managing suppliers and internal communications were significantly more time-intensive issues for marketers in APAC than their contemporaries in EMEA and NA.
We asked our survey respondents: What marketing function do you feel takes up most of your time?32% – Marketing reports and analysis18% – Content management, creation and localisation14% – Data management, integration and analysis
Analysis: Why is reporting so time-intensive?
Marketers have a great deal to report on. While technology has transformed and arguably revolutionised transparency on marketing effectiveness, it’s also demanded marketers provide more and better data to the rest of the organisation, as well as provide more evidence for their decisions and to support budget allocation. Furthermore, the proliferation of reporting platforms means many marketers have to work with numerous technologies to pull together the required picture of activity or the necessary evidence.
This scenario is arguably fuel to the fire of AI-enabled martech platforms which promise to provide more of this data seamlessly, thereby freeing up marketers to get on with other, less laborious and potentially more value-adding activities.
The Kingpin View: The right skills and tech are paramountAttribution and measurement are top of the agenda for many of our clients, but without the right skills and technology, being able to connect datapoints and measure long-term campaign effectiveness can often prove time consuming and resource heavy. As an agency, we constantly tackle this problem with our clients, through Argus, our own data/campaign management platform. Through a range of methods including retrospective deal analysis and touchpoint identification we can produce real views of purchasing journeys and ROI metrics.
Revenue generated is by far the most important metric for tech marketers
Although a number of different metrics are used by tech marketers in different regions, it’s clear that revenue generated is consistently the most significant; 52% of marketers specify it as their most important metric. This data suggests revenue is deemed more than twice as important as the number of MQLs generated, and five times more important than pipeline. On this note, it’s interesting to note MQLs are seen as correspondingly less significant in APAC than in EMEA or NA. While there are other metrics which are deemed as most significant in some organisations, these are very much in the minority, specified by less than 5% of respondents.
The Kingpin View: Sales and marketing alignment is essential for growthIt’s interesting to see revenue is by far the most important metric for senior marketers. This adds to the theory that marketing and sales are becoming far more intertwined and effective alignment between the two is essential for business growth.However, this can create its own challenge. Focus on revenue can lead to marketers losing sight of the buying journey, which often isn’t linear but a combination of online and offline activities with multiple touchpoints and more importantly involve selling to human emotions.
To read more about this year’s global tech marketing trends, download a free copy of the report, here.
