• by Ray Schultz , March 19, 2020

B2B brands face major hurdles, not least of which is a split between sales and marketing over which channels work best, according to the State Of Predictable Revenue Growth, a study by 6Sense and Heinz Marketing.

Marketing teams value content, inbound marketing, website personalization and targeted display ads, while sales lean toward events, nurture emails and cold calls. Of the successful firms polled, 42% lack consensus on this issue. 

And it’s a critical issue because few of the surveyed companies are hitting their revenue goals. Furthermore, mass emails no longer seem to work.

“Only 12% of account-driven organizations and 16% of all organizations view MAP-generated mass emailsas valuable in generating demand,” the study states.

It adds thatMAP-automated nurture emails also deliver low value, with only 18% of all organizations and account-driven organizations reporting that "nurture emails are valuable in generating demand.”

In general, there are four obstacles that get in the way of predictable revenue generation, the study notes:

• The misalignment of sales and marketing — Sales and marketing teams utilize different data sets and tech platforms. The result: misaligned metrics. And there is little cross-functional coordination.
• Insufficient demand generation — Only 48% of brands can deliver personalized content, and fewer — at 45% — have a content hub on their website. Moreover, 53% continue to gate their content, although 70% of the buyer’s journey is completed anonymously. Moreover, “companies have made themselves believe that email is valuable, when in reality it doesn’t hold a candle to other more effective methods of generating demand,” the study says.
• Ineffective prioritization of resources — A third of firms lack a defined strategy for reaching target accounts, and half say their tech stack is too complex or expensive. In addition, half believe their scoring processes fail to produce the best leads.
• Inability to engage the right buyers at scale — Of account-driven organizations, 90% believe it’s a challenge to orchestrate their ABM platform across multiple channels. Moreover, brands lack a singular view of accounts. And while 64% deploy ABM for at least half of their marketing mix, 33% don’t know which messages will resonate best with target accounts.

“If your company failed to meet revenue goals, you’re not alone; our research found that 80% of companies failed to exceed revenue goals in 2019 and 38% of companies didn’t meet at least 90% of their goals,” concludes Latane Conant, CMO at 6sense.

6Sense and Heinz Marketing surveyed 213 executives across sales and marketing.