June 28, 2012

80 Percent of Marketers and Salespeople Feel Their Demand-Generation Campaigns are Insufficient, New Corporate Visions Survey Reveals: Study Underscores Need for Engaging Content and Sales and Marketing Alignment

Corporate Visions, a sales and marketing messaging company, this week announced the results of its second quarter survey on demand generation, which polled more than 440 B2B sales and marketing professionals around the globe. The survey found that 80 percent of salespeople and marketers feel their demand-generation campaigns are insufficient when it comes to helping them achieve selling success. After the results from last quarter's Sales and Marketing Messaging Report found that more than 50 percent of sales and marketing professionals have insufficient to no training to deliver compelling virtual conversations, Corporate Visions looked to determine what disconnects are also evident in demand-generation campaigns. "This quarter's survey results clearly show us that organizations are facing serious challenges when it comes to creating and executing effective demand generation campaigns," said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Corporate Visions, in a news release. "Ironically, the survey revealed that the two largest disconnects are the two most important factors to achieving demand generation success: creating engaging content and developing messages that clearly address customer pain points. If salespeople and marketers are able to work together to implement these two strategies successfully into their campaigns, they will be able to motivate prospects and win more business."

Each quarter, Corporate Visions polls sales and marketing professionals who work in complex, B2B selling environments to help pinpoint the various challenges facing industry leading companies worldwide that strive to achieve marketing and sales alignment, and to differentiate their solutions in an increasingly commoditized marketplace.

Notable findings of the Q2 survey reveal:

• Demand generation campaigns are ineffective — An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents noted their demand generation campaigns are ineffective to semi-ineffective, while only 20 percent felt they were fully effective.
• Disconnect between sales and marketing content — A total of 65 percent of respondents said their sales teams use less than half of the demand generation content their marketing department produces.
• Top factors preventing success — When asked of the single most important factor that prevents organizations from having successful demand generation campaigns, 37 percent said their content isn't engaging enough, while 31 percent said it was due to lack of sales and marketing alignment. The remaining 29 percent of respondents said it was due to budget constraints, not enough content or lack of executive buy-in.
• Wrong messaging focus — 60 percent of respondents said their organization's demand generation campaigns focus solely on their own company's products, features and services, rather than focusing on their customers' pain points.

The survey is detailed in Corporate Visions' Q2 2012 Sales and Marketing Messaging Report.