There is a misalignment between the objectives of marketing departments and CEOs, according to the results of a new survey.
The research from Revenue Performance Management solutions Eloqua determined that only half (51 per cent) of marketing departments carry a revenue target, despite revenue growth being cited as the single most important metric for CEOs.
In fact, four times as many marketers surveyed cited revenue growth (36 per cent) as their CEO’s top priority as cited customer satisfaction (9 per cent). Increased revenues also trumped profits (23 per cent), lead generation (21 per cent), and brand awareness (11 per cent).
Results also revealed that many businesses are not aligning marketing and sales teams’ activities sufficiently to accelerate revenue performance. Only half of marketing and sales teams share performance objectives (48 per cent) and more than a third (35 per cent) don’t view the same “dashboards” when analysing the sales funnel.
The findings also showed that many marketers did not have visibility over which of their campaigns were converting to sales, with only 42 per cent of marketers knowing the three highest and three lowest performing campaigns of last year.
Following the release of the research, Eloqua is calling for businesses to adopt a Revenue Performance Management strategy to break down silos between sales and marketing, achieve better visibility of the sales pipeline, accelerate revenue growth and forecast long-term revenue performance.
Commenting on the results, Stuart Wheldon, Senior Director Customer Success & Strategy at Eloqua said, “Marketing’s relationship with revenue has long centred on correlation. Revenue Performance Management now moves us to causation. It is clear from our research that marketing needs to align their efforts with the C-suite’s needs. And that means revenue growth.”
Methodology
Research conducted by polling 100 marketing delegates attending this year’s TFM&A event
www.eloqua.com
