A recent study by Conversica revealed that B2B companies are spending 50% of their marketing and sales budgets on generating leads that are never pursued. Nearly half of both marketing (46%) and sales (43%) respondents noted that leads are “extremely” important for creating alignment between both teams.
Roughly 100 marketing and sales reps were surveyed by Conversica at Dreamforce 2015, according to a Conversica rep in an interview with Demand Gen Report. The questions aimed to identify what was the cause misalignment between marketing and sales teams, as well as highlight what B2B companies were doing to alleviate that misalignment.
Sales teams highlighted two primary concerns for their lack of pursuit. The leads were either:
- Too hard to reach (41%); or
- Were poor quality (37%).
However, over a third (39%) of the B2B marketers surveyed stated that only a quarter of their leads are being followed up on — despite the fact that sales invests a large amount of time into lead engagement. 30% of marketers noted that the reason for this was that salespeople were not following up in a timely manner, or not making multiple attempts to contact a lead.
“These are disappointing statistics,” said Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica. “Despite all the emphasis being placed on sales and marketing alignment today, that alignment obviously remains elusive and frustrating. Our survey found, as we suspected, that lead engagement is clearly at the heart of the problem.”
The study also highlighted that 70% of marketing teams — and 80% of sales reps — agree that their teams are still not aligned, despite the ongoing trend of promoting marketing and sales alignment. The overwhelming majority (80%) of both marketing and sales teams believe that investing in marketing and sales automation software can help bridge the gap between the two teams.
