Demand Gen Report

Business executives are increasingly wary of sales messaging, as The Content Preferences Survey, conducted by DemandGen Report, found that 75% of respondents encourage solution providers creating content to “curb the sales messaging.” Research findings indicate a need for marketers to reevaluate their content strategies to ensure that prospects understand the value for their business and objectives, rather than resorting to obtrusive, ineffective sales-speak.

To offer recommendations to solution providers creating content, 55% of respondents selected “focus less on product specifications and more on value.” The survey also underscored the importance of “trustworthy” content. When asked how their content consumption habits have changed over the last year, 60% of respondents said they place a higher emphasis on the trustworthiness of the source creating content.

Are marketing-generated leads really full of dreck, or is sales just unable to close deals? It is an age-old battle of wills that is getting more heated as the pressure is on both sales and marketing to meet ever-rising revenue targets. Many organizations are looking to Big Data and predictive analytics to help identify hot sales prospects, but weaknesses in their databases are hampering sales productivity.

More than two thirds (68%) of companies report struggling with lead generation, blaming marketing for not providing enough quality leads, according to recent research sponsored by Lattice Engines, a data analytics platform provider, and conducted by CSO Insights, a sales and marketing effectiveness research firm,