Times are a changin’! Marketing organizations that were once deemed ‘cost centers’ are evolving into value creators and revenue drivers for B2B organizations.

The progression from traditional marketing tactics to demand generation and revenue marketing has shifted the focus of marketing key performance indicators (KPIs). Output and lead number are no longer sufficient metrics for the modern revenue marketer – in 2019 the pressure is on to demonstrate lead quality, pipeline contribution and marketing-sourced revenue.

What is Revenue Marketing?

Before we dive in, let’s do a quick check-in on what I mean by revenue marketing.

Revenue marketing is a focused marketing effort on driving bottom-line business results. It is centered around the ability to increase quality leads that are passed to sales, accelerate those leads through the sales pipeline and drive closed won business from marketing sourced or marketing influenced activities.

Hand-in-hand with successfully supporting activities that grow the business is the ability to measure the investments that led to these results and accurately forecast revenue for future quarters. Revenue marketers are hyper-focused on measuring return on their investments and limiting their activities to those that can be tied to revenue growth.

13 Revenue Marketing Statistics for 2019

This post will cover 13 revenue marketing statistics to inspire your B2B marketing strategy in 2019.

The 13 revenue marketing stats are broken down into 2 sections:

• The 2019 lay of the land for revenue marketing

• The current state of B2B revenue marketing reporting

Let’s take a look at the data!

The 2019 Lay of the Land for Revenue Marketing

1. Roughly 85% of B2B marketers are feeling intense pressure to add direct revenue accountability to their job description. (Pragmatic Institute)

2. 67% of B2B marketers are accountable for revenue performance or contribution. (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

3. 33% of B2B marketers said traditional MQLs were their top metric to measure performance, 30% indicted pipeline influenced was the top metric, 14% said total leads/inquiries, and 11% indicated accounts engaged was the main metric. (Source: 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report)

4. 68% of B2B marketers said in-person events and webinars continue to rank as the top engagement tactic, while 50% said white papers and case studies, 37% said videos, and 25% said content syndication was the top engagement tactic. (Source: 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report)

5. Only about 500 marketing organizations are in the Revenue Marketing stage. (The Pedowitz Group)

This year we are seeing a rise in mainstream B2B marketer awareness for the importance of tying marketing investments to business outcomes (we are talking in terms of measurable revenue dollars ya’ll $$). Transitioning from a sales support to a demand generation and revenue organization, however, requires a complete restructuring of a marketing organization’s skills, technology, and processes.

Most marketers are still reporting on lead volume and vanity metrics such as email opens, clicks, event attendees, content downloads and social shares, with little to no understanding of the ROI of marketing activities. But the writing is on the wall. The majority of B2B marketers today are anticipating the looming accountability to not only understand their marketing impact but to also commit to generating a dollar figure in pipeline creation and revenue performance.

The Current State of B2B Revenue Reporting

1. 91% of B2B marketers say marketing measurement and reporting is a top priority for their organization. (Source: Demand Generation Marketing Measurement and Attribution Survey Report)

2. 53% of marketers can’t measure or are unsure of their ROI (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

3. Companies achieve increases of 20% to 50% in inbound leads while reducing the cost per lead by more than 30% from implementing a global demand center. (BCG)

4. 23% of marketers are being asked to track activity by specific stages in the funnel and 25% are being asked to track the velocity and progression between those funnel stages (Source: Demand Generation Marketing Measurement and Attribution Survey Report)

5. Revenue Marketers spend 2 days a month on average, pulling data and preparing Revenue Marketing reports, compared to 5 days a month on average for Demand Marketers (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

6. Revenue Marketers are 2.4x more likely to Forecast Revenue Performance compared to Demand Marketers. (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

7. Revenue Marketers are 2x more likely to have Greater ROI compared to non-revenue marketers. (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

8. Only 34% of marketers provide the data and analysis the C-suite and board expect. (Source: A Heinz Marketing Annual Report Commissioned by CaliberMind, 2018-2019)

Setting up systems and ensuring data is accurate will be one of the biggest challenges marketers face in reporting on B2B marketing revenue. The Pedowitz Group has coined The Revenue Marketing Journey™ as a means to explain the transformative process and associated metrics for organizations moving from traditional to lead generation, demand generation and revenue marketing. The Revenue Marketing Journey™ nicely summarizes the typical progression stages of systems, people and process marketing organizations go through to get their ducks in a row to deliver on revenue marketing goals.

When B2B budgets are cut, marketing’s share of the pie is often the first place to go. This is because it is often the most overlooked in terms of value. The future of successful B2B marketers will be characterized by their ability to report on strategic KPIs and revenue metrics (not the qualitative, tactical activities traditional marketers have focused on). The ability to provide data and analysis around marketing performance will help get marketing a seat at the executive table.

Inspiring the Transformation to B2B Revenue Marketing

Successfully reporting marketing’s impact on the bottom line is two-fold. It not only helps to illustrate marketing’s meaningful contribution to executives in the C-suite but it also serves as a means of motivating internal marketing teams. The ability to demonstrate how each team member’s individual contribution is driving measurable business results can build pride, camaraderie in moving towards a clear, team goal, and increase job satisfaction by linking individual tasks to the bigger picture.

Where is your team in the revenue marketing journey? Leave a comment below with your take on this marketing transformation. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them below as well!