Today’s complex and ever-changing world of B2B marketing is full of tools to help you maximize this and optimize that. Yet despite the plethora of functionality new technologies offer, it’s essential to focus on what really matters: driving more revenue for your organization, impacting pipeline, and speeding conversions for higher velocity sales and greater marketing return on investment (ROI). What’s available to help marketers accomplish this? There are solutions that include predictive analytics, lead generation, demand generation and marketing automation — but what’s going to make the most impact in your organization? We believe it’s live, context-rich data that can help marketers identify and target the right prospects, thereby fitting their ideal customer profile with the right message at the right time to jump-start the demand gen process.
What makes this the best solution? It’s where social data meets predictive analytics. What good is data if it’s not accurate? Or if it can’t be used easily to predict how or where to connect with prospects? According to Bluewolf's recent State of Salesforce Report, only seven percent of marketing automation users surveyed said they experienced a good return on investment from their marketing automation spend.
Why? It’s not that their marketing automation platform isn’t effective. But stale, poor quality data powers the engine, while huge resources are spent on purchasing bad data. Fragmented processes for lead qualification are prevalent, as there isn’t a unified platform for analytics and discovery to pull it all together. All in all, it's not a good combination for building a business.
Marketers need accurate, live, social, and context-rich data to help profile and find their next customers quickly — a must for demand generation. Without the ability to integrate feedback, or allow interaction between sales and marketing users, solutions lose their effectiveness. The best targeting and profiling requires optimization, and real-time iteration is essential to identify and connect with your buyers.
The power of having exactly the right prospects ready to connect with for a new product launch, or an executive seminar invite, saves time, money, and speeds up conversions. Marketing automation is a hugely powerful tool for marketers, but you need to have the most relevant lists to send your campaigns and emails to. Connecting social data with predictive analytics in real-time enables marketing to make the most of their efforts, filling the demand gen pipeline with the leads that look most similar to your best customers.
