B2B marketers’ primary goal with their digital marketing efforts is to improve lead quality rather than increase quantity, according to the 6th annual State of B2B Digital Marketing Report from DemandWave, a B2B digital marketing agency. Nearly half (48 percent) of the approximately 200 U.S. B2B marketing professionals who responded to the survey listed delivery of quality leads as the No. 1 objective — a 26 percent increase from the previous year’s survey. Driving more leads through digital marketing is the No. 2 priority (23 percent of respondents), followed by increasing marketing ROI (12 percent) and improving brand awareness (9 percent).
Not surprisingly, delivering quality leads also topped the respondents’ list of digital marketing challenges for 2017, knocking the measurement and proof of ROI to the second spot after two years at the top of the challenges list.
Budgets increasing
Confidence in digital marketing remains strong, with 48 percent of respondents expecting their digital marketing budgets to increase in 2017 and 43 percent saying it will remain the same. Only 6 percent expect their digital marketing budget to decrease. (Five percent said they are not sure what will happen to their budget.)
It also appears a corner has been turned when it comes to offline versus digital marketing spending. Some 38 percent of those polled plan to put 60 percent or more of their budget into online marketing this year.
As for where that money’s going, paid search and social media, are the channels poised to gain the biggest share of investments. Over half of marketers are planning to increase investment in paid search in 2017, slightly edging out social media and marking a two-year winning streak for the advertising channel.
Most channels’ budget increases stayed relatively steady, except for display advertising, which saw nearly 35 percent year-over-year growth.
The metrics that matter
For the fourth consecutive year, conversion rate (from lead to customer) was the top metric being measured for digital marketing success. This makes sense as it ties to B2B marketers’ top goal: delivering quality leads.
ROI made the biggest leap with a 77 percent increase from 2016. Another positive sign of marketers’ improved ability to measure ROI? Website traffic as a top performance metric saw a decline of 40 percent year over year. While website traffic is an important leading indicator of digital marketing success, it doesn’t come close to demonstrating digital’s impact on revenue.
Revenue drivers
When it comes to actually producing leads and driving revenue, respondents say email and organic search are their top performers. Despite email retaining its throne as a top channel for revenue gains (63 percent), more marketers are waking up to the financial benefits of SEO. This shift is reflected in organic search pulling even with email for the first time as the biggest revenue driver, signaling a 28 percent increase from last year.
The report’s authors state, “We can surmise a couple factors playing a role in the rise of SEO-driven revenue. First, as it’s been historically tough to prove the ROI of organic search, the perceived value of the channel is inherently increasing as marketers improve their ability to measure ROI. Second, SEO is now a far cry from being the new kid on the block. B2B marketers have become more adept at leveraging SEO to drive leads and sales as the channel has moved from an emerging trend to digital marketing staple over the years.”
Blogs and video rule
When it comes to the most-widely produced forms of content, marketers equally chose blogs and videos at 82 percent each. The report’s authors point out this represents an interesting content split, given the relative cost disparities in video production versus blog writing. White papers came in a close third (73 percent), followed by case studies and inforgraphics (both at 68 percent).
Of course, producing digital content is a challenge in itself. More than half of marketers (53 percent) say they use in-house teams to produce all of their digital content. Nearly half of the B2B marketers responding (47 percent) report investing in agency-created content, with 6 percent of that total using vendors to generate all of their digital content.
For the fourth consecutive year, conversion of leads to customers was cited as the top metric to measure digital marketing performance. The importance of website traffic dropped precipitously (40 percent) from the previous year’s survey.
