Few B2B Marketers Feel That Their Company Is Effective At Maximizing Potential Revenue from Major Accounts

April 26, 2017

This article is included in these additional categories:

B2B | Business of Marketing | Internal Collaboration

Only about one-third (35%) of marketers think that their companies are effective at maximizing the potential revenue from their major accounts, according to a report [download page] from Altify. Not too surprisingly, those in sales roles had more confidence in their ability to gain optimal revenue (48%) than their marketing counterparts.

B2B companies’ failure to upsell customers has been documented in other research: in an Influitive and Koyne Marketing study surrounding B2B customer marketing activities, respondents noted that actions such as customer reference/testimonials garnered the highest implementation rates whereas cross sell/upsell campaigns and renewal campaigns had the lowest uptake.

Returning to the Altify survey, B2B sales people were generally more optimistic than marketers about the sales team’s performance across various dimensions, as might be expected. This was especially the case when it came to qualifying sales opportunities (71% of sales respondents agreeing that they were effective versus 52% of marketers) and caring deeply about the customer’s success (87% and 70%, respectively).

On the flip side, marketers were generally more optimistic about their own efforts, particularly when it came to delivering reasonable numbers of qualified sales opportunities, where 61% of marketers felt their team was competent against just one-third (34%) of salespeople. There was also a huge gap in beliefs that marketing is an effective investment of the company’s resources, where the vast majority of marketers (86%) were in agreement, compared to only around half (54%) of salespeople. (Bringing this result up to marketers might not help bridge the sales and marketing divide.)

Worrisomely, meanwhile, is the finding that one-third of marketers admitted that their team does not understand the company’s customers. This is, as the report points out, an important consideration for performance…

About the Data: The report surveyed 833 people from 60 countries with 83% of participants coming from executive or management roles in companies of varying sizes, with a strong representation in the high tech and professional services industries. Some 51% of respondents were in sales positions, and 77% of total respondents were male.

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