• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 8, 2022

Email is by far the most-utilized channel for demand generation — nothing else even comes close. But B2B brands may have to do some fine-tuning given the challenges they face, judging by The State Of Demand Generation, a study from HIPB2B and Ascend2.

Of the B2B marketers polled, 25% cite email as their primary channel. And most use it to some degree:  

• Email — 68% 
• Organic social — 39%
• Paid social — 36%
• Blogging/website — 36% 
• Outbound calls — 33%
• Paid search/PPC — 30%
• SEO — 30%
• Display/retargeting — 28%
• Affiliate marketing  — 26%
• Influencer marketing — 21%
• Live chat — 19%

The top primary channels are: 

1. Email 
2. Outbound calls 
3. Paid social 
4. Blogging/website

And the top secondary channels:

1. Email 
2. Paid social
3. Organic social 
4. Blogging/website

Moreover, email also tops the sources from which brands now capture customer data:

• Email—72%
• Social Media—65% 
• 3^rd Party Websites—37%
• Voice Channels & Chat—22% 

That doesn’t mean brands are succeeding with their overall programs.   

Only 24% rate themselves as very successful at meeting the goals of their demand-generation program. Another 61% are somewhat effective, and 15% are unsuccessful, with 4% saying they are very much so.

Their challenges include: 

• Generating quality leads — 42% 
• Collecting quality data — 40% 
• Generating enough leads — 33%
• Measuring performance — 32%
• Aligning marketing and sales — 26%
• Allocating sufficient budget — 25% 
• Attributing revenue to marketing — 21%
• Obtaining buy-in from leadership — 17%
• Building an efficient technology stack — 15%

What’s more, while all marketers who have a unified view of the customer report demand-generation success, only 35% have such a view. In addition, 26% lack one, while 20% are planning to achieve one in the next 12 months, and 19% are unsure. 

Overall, 75% need to generate more leads in the year ahead to achieve their goals. Here are their objectives for next 12 months:

• Increase by more  than 20% — 11% 
• Increase by more than 15% — 24%
• Increase by more than 5% — 34% 
• Stay the same as previous months — 20% 
• Need to generate less than previous months — 5%

Those are some tall orders: Perhaps this is why 58% are increasing their demand generation for the coming year, versus 14% who are decreasing it and 28% who are staying the same. 

In the past year, 60% increased the leads generated, 27% stayed the same and 11% saw a decrease.  

Here are the strategies they are now executing: 

• Social media marketing — 62% 
• Paid advertising — 50% 
• Event marketing — 41%
• Content marketing/syndication — 38% 
• Lead nurturing and scoring — 32%
• Account-based marketing — 31% 
• Partner marketing — 29%
• Omnichannel marketing — 25% 

It's interesting to note that 49% of brands with successful demand-gen programs are utilizing an omnichannel approach, compared to 25% without them. And 99% of omnichannel users report some level of success with their demand-gen programs. They say:

• We have an omnichannel strategy in place and measurable across some channels — 29%
• We are currently implementing an omnichannel strategy — 22% 
• We are planning to implement an omnichannel strategy — 16%
• We do not have an omnichannel strategy in place with no plans for one — 22% 

Meanwhile, the money for increasing omnichannel budgets is coming from: 

• Product marketing budget — 47% 
• Ad budget — 41%
• Demand-generation budget — 33% 
• IT/Technology budget — 30%
• Content budget — 29%
• Omnichannel-specific budget — 20% 

What is the state of the respondents' marketing stacks? They are:

• Fully integrated into a single platform — 16% 
• Mostly integrated with some siloed tools and data — 43%
• Partially integrated with many siloed tools and data — 22% 
• Mostly standalone tools and data is manually integrated — 13%

Whatever their state, martech stacks need to improve in these areas:

• Measuring performance — 40% 
• Attributing revenue to marketing — 35% 
• Flexibility/ability to customize — 34%
• Systems/data integration — 26%
• Data visualization/dashboards — 22%
• Scalability — 21%
• Consolidating tools — 15% 

Finally, here are the most effective KPIs for measuring demand-generation performance:

• Revenue — 44% 
• Return on investment (ROI) — 41%
• Lead conversion rate — 32% 
• Cost-per-lead (CPL) — 28%
• Customer lifetime value (CLV) — 21%
• Win rate — 20%
• Sales velocity — 17% 
• Pipeline value — 13% 
• Acquired MWLS — 9% 

Of the marketing leaders who responded, only 37% see revenue as a most effective KPI.  

Working with HIPB2B, a demand-generation provider, Ascend2 surveyed 183 B2B marketing professionals. Of these, 41% worked in firms with more than 1,000 employees, 16% in those with 500 to 1,000 employees and 43% in companies with 50 to 500 staffers. 

In addition, 25% were at the owner/partner/C-level in their firms, while 45% were at the vice president/director/manager level and 30% were non-management professionals.