Newton, MA
The Funnelholic
May 28, 2009
by Craig Rosenberg
http://www.funnelholic.com
Kristin Hambelton, from Neolane, is a player in the marketing automation
space. She is senior director of marketing at has been around the block with 18
years of marketing experience with high technology products and services
companies. In this article, Kristin shares her thoughts on the trends,
challenges, and oversights experienced by B-to-B marketers.
What are the biggest challenges for 2009?
From our perspective, one of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers comes down
to improving campaign measurement and ROI, which in turn allows them to protect
their budgets. Everyone talks about measurement and ROI, but despite available
technologies, it is still incredibly difficult to do, especially with B2B
campaigns that tend to be long and have multiple touch points.
Based on industry discussions and research, we've concluded that while a
majority of marketers believe there is a direct link between marketing and the
bottom line, few can actually prove it. This can be attributed to heavy reliance
on multiple, antiquated spreadsheets to get the data they need to draw relevant
conclusions. And even if they can get the data, the conclusions are often
questionable and open to interpretation. Manual Excel-based processes make
defending budgets to the C-suite a Herculean task.
