ITSMA Study Reveals that Few B2B Marketers Consider Lead Management a Core Competence

Nov. 9, 2011 - PRLog -- A recent ITSMA study shows that demand generation and lead management are top priorities for B2B marketers, but very few companies consider lead management to be a core competence. The B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks survey, published October 5, 2011, showed that most of the companies surveyed are in the early stages of planning and implementing formal lead management processes.

The study also identified four key challenges that B2B Marketers face when trying to improve their lead management practices:
• Process - 36% say that process related issues are their greatest challenge;
• People - 24% say they don't have sufficient resources or skills;
• Technology - 22% report issues with systems integration, adoption, data quality and availability;
• Content - 18% indicate that having the right content, and/or quantity, is their greatest challenge.

“Despite making progress, even the top practioners in our survey are not far down the path of developing lead management processes,” said Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President, Research and Thought Leadership, ITSMA. “While the leaders have a leg up when it comes to the infrastructure and processes to track leads from inception to close, they are not mining the data from their systems to optimize marketing’s performance.”

The survey also showed that few companies, whether they are leaders or laggards, are doing enough to align marketing with sales. While many have processes to hand leads to sales, fewer have feedback loops or Service Level Agreements.

ITSMA has published the B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks report, which provides insights into best practices for lead qualification, scoring, routing and nurturing, marketing and sales alignment, performance measurement, and leveraging marketing automation.

In addition, to help B2B Marketers plan their journey to lead management success, ITSMA has created a Lead Management Roadmap as part of the report. The Roadmap offers guidance on the steps B2B marketers can take to develop lead management best practices, focusing on defining the process, building the infrastructure, transforming marketing lead management, and optimizing the lead management process. On December 1, ITSMA will host an online briefing to provide more information on the Lead Management Roadmap and the survey results: http://www.itsma.com/events/navigate-the-four-stages-of-l....

METHODOLOGY

The B2B Services and Solutions Lead Management Benchmarks survey included responses from 85 representatives from 76 leading technology, communications, and professional services companies.

ITSMA analyzed the data by:
•   Company type (Sells products and services or sells primarily services)
•   Annual revenue (Less than $100M, $100M–$999M, more than or equal to $1B)
•   Lead management performance (Leaders and laggards)
For more information on the study, please see http://www.itsma.com/uncategorized/b2b-services-and-solut... or contact Julie Schwartz at +1-781-862-8500, x112, or at jschwartz@itsma.com.

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ITSMA provides research, consulting, and training to the world’s leading technology, communications, and professional services providers.