How satisfied have you been with your company’s marketing in the last 12 months? Are you extremely satisfied? Moderately satisfied? Dissatisfied?
What about your company’s president and executive team? Are they extremely satisfied? Moderately satisfied? Dissatisfied?
SalesForce’s 2016 State of Marketing Report
Recently Salesforce.com released a great report – its 2016 State of Marketing Report. They surveyed 3,975 full time marketing leaders in the Business to Business and Business to Consumer arenas (1,385 here in the United States and 421 in Canada).
One of the first statistics in the report deals with the satisfaction level of the marketing leaders surveyed. How satisfied were they with the outcomes their companies were getting as a result of their marketing efforts? The results were very interesting:
18% – High Performers – “extremely satisfied” with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company’s marketing investment,
68% – Moderate Performers – “very or moderately satisfied” with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company’s marketing investment, and
14% – Underperformers – “slightly or not at all satisfied” with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company’s marketing investment.
Remember – Those surveyed were marketing people. What do you think the results would be if the executives of their companies were surveyed? What would they say?
Most probably 20% would be pleased. The other 80% would not be. In fact, they probably would not have been as positive as their marketing people who felt they were in the moderate performers’ and undeperformers’ categories?
There was another study which came out several years ago. There 80% of presidents and executives were not happy with the marketing their companies were doing. So there is a difference in perception.
Why Do Presidents and Executives Feel This Way?
They view marketing as a cost center and expect a return on the dollars they invest. They are not seeing the return they expected. In some instances, marketing may not have been able to show any return on the dollars spent. The money generated from sales may have been less than the marketing dollars they invested.
Where is your marketing at? Would the president and executive team say it’s in the top 18% or in the lower 82%?
If it’s in the lower 82%, what are you doing to change that? Are you constantly analyzing each marketing piece to see if the sales revenue exceeds the marketing costs? If not, are you working to replace it quickly? Are there other forms of marketing (different white papers, case studies, video sales letters, webinars) which will produce better results?
Your Goal – Get Your Marketing Into the Top 18%
You have to be ruthless here. When your marketing is in the top 18%, your president and executive team will be looking at your marketing as a profit center helping them to achieve the goals they set not as an expense sucking money from the company.
