Approach

1. Firms struggle to generate, structure, and deliver the right insights from content 2. Most struggle to deliver insights on the buyer journey that support sales 3. Marketing is not focused on insights that help close business

APPROACH 1

Firms Struggle To Generate, Structure, And Deliver The Right Insights From Content

Most (94%) firms face challenges with generating insights from marketing-created content and experiences. The most common challenge, as cited by nearly half of respondents (46%), was an inability to structure insights appropriately, despite having plenty. Additionally, many also highlighted that feedback and insights are lost because marketing is disconnected from content’s delivery (42%), and more than a third felt they do not have enough time and expertise to analyze buyer insights (36%).

A significant number struggle to even generate insights, due to poorly tagged content (40%) and low traffic/visits (38%).

A lack of developer resources to design experiences that provide insights on buyer behavior might be the root cause of these issues; this was the second most common challenge cited by respondents (43%).

Base: 214 B2B marketing and sales decision makers in the UK and USA who are knowledgeable about or responsible for their firms' content needs and strategies
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Turtl

APPROACH 2

Most Struggle To Deliver Insights On The Buyer Journey That Support Sales

Unsurprisingly, challenges with generating and structuring insights limit the ability to deliver insights on buyer behavior. While aspiring to be able to predict future buyer behavior (40%), around a third of firms still struggle at the tactical level with providing buyer journey insights to support the sales process. Not only are they unable to gain these insights from content (39%), but they also struggle to determine which content assets are most impactful in a buyer’s journey (36%) and find it difficult to tie content interactions to specific buyers (32%).

One in three sales leaders said the lack of credible insights into buyer motivations specifically was a top issue, but marketers did not rank this among their top challenges.

Base: 214 B2B marketing and sales decision makers in the UK and US who are knowledgeable about or responsible for their firms’ content needs and strategies
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Turtl

APPROACH 3

Marketing Is Not Focused On Insights That Help Close Business

The challenges around delivering buyer insights that help sales might be caused by the fact that marketing does not seem focused on buyer insights that help close business. Sales leaders stated that the relative interest of the buyer in the business proposition (63%) is the most useful type of insight for closing business, and 60% also flagged motivations behind buyers’ research process. But fewer than half of marketers considered either of these to be useful.

Marketers may believe that their buyer segmentation strategies effectively align buyers and propositions, but, even where that is the case, it would only apply to outbound advertising and marketing scenarios. If marketers agree that insights to power sales will increase their value to the business, they should focus on the insights that their peers in sales demand.

Base: 214 B2B marketing and sales decision-makers in the UK and US who are knowledgeable about or responsible for their firms’ content needs and strategies
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Turtl