April 20th, 2010 by Mark Galloway
What Should B2B Marketers Be Measuring
In this economically challenged time, every boss wants to know what they are getting for the marketing dollars invested. It has become a routine to try and justify the tactics by any means of activity available. This hurts a B2B marketer’s reputation with their sales colleagues and with their boss. The most egregious stretch in justifying marketing tactics is the “Cost per Lead” metric. When a “lead” is defined as any response and is passed on to sales, you are really hurting marketing’s reputation and you are hurting your sales’ teams productivity. STOP. Work together with your sales colleagues to narrow the definition of what a ‘lead’ is. For too many B2B marketers, whoever “raises their hand” is a lead. As 
Megan Heuer at Sirius Decisions points out in her latest blog post, this approach for measuring ROI on lead gen way over simplifies your reality and costs you credibility with your management team and sales. Most prospective B2B buyers become your customer after several marketing touches with you. Our experience shows that the first touch is only the beginning and that it takes several interactions across a wide range of tactics (both digital and personal/telephone) to convince a prospect to become a customer. If you are struggling for a way to measure your marketing ROI, stop and do some diagnosis on the number of touches some of your latest customers had with you on their journey from first interaction to contract signing.
Pingback: Tweets that mention What Should B2B Marketers Be Measuring « oppSource.com -- Topsy.com