Inside Sales Professionals: How Far has the Modern Marketer Come? – B2B Magazine Asks
In the March 4, 2013 edition of BtoB, the magazine for marketing strategists, the question was raised by Eloqua Inc., a marketing automation company and customers of XANT, if marketers were at the level of what they perceived as the “modern marketer”. The results were surprising.
The study, “Defining the Modern Marketer: From Ideal to Real,” had marketers rate themselves in how well they knew who was involved in the buying process, roles of those involved, who decisions makers were, etc. The average score was 7.0. This has impact on marketing and sales and the study revealed how much the marketing scene has changed.
According to the study, what has contributed the most to how the modern marketer has changed were:
60% – Technology has allowed marketers to track their ROI
58% – Using social media effectively in marketing
42% – A power change from the brand to the customer
42% – Having lead nurturing and demand generation mature
33% – The rise of mobile marketing (hint, hint)
30% – The way media is being divided and delivered through different channels
19% – Data cleansing improvement
(Information and quotes were taken from BtoB’s “Who’s the very model of the modern marketer?“)
In the article, Ginger Shimp, marketing director professional services industry at SAP America, said, “At one point it was all about advertising; but today, with so much focused on conversion, so much on marketing has become a quasi-sales function.”
What this means, and as the results from the survey showed, marketing and sales are blurring the line more than ever before. Relationship building is becoming more apart of sales and marketing, so much so that inside sales reps are also engaging in functions that were once purely marketing – like reaching out to customers and leads themselves.
Another key part of this survey to improve marketing, which we’ve proven at XANT, is the data cleansing mentioned in the statistics. Cleaning out your data base of duplicates, wrong numbers, bad fits and other disqualifiers can greatly improve sales for the company. Something every sales professional wants.
When all is said in done, marketing and sales need to come together and figure out how to become ‘modern marketers’ – both parties can learn something from the other.
What do you think of the article that BtoB published? Did you find other insights useful?
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