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B2B Marketers: It's Time To Ditch Sourcing Metrics - Forrester
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Sourcing metrics can’t be fully cast aside until marketing leaders latch on to a new set of performance indicators. Those indicators must more completely demonstrate marketing’s contribution to the revenue engine while working to drive alignment and accountability. “Revenue lift is calculated by looking to the combination of increases in win rates and deal sizes that are achieved when marketing interaction with a buying group reaches a set threshold.” By surrounding this lift metric with indicators that demonstrate that the overall pipeline is full enough, that marketing is sufficiently engaged with a meaningful portion of the overall pipeline, and that marketing’s engagement is producing lift in an economical way, the B2B marketing organization can finally ditch sourcing and deliver enhanced impact for the business.
Sourcing isn’t a driver of business success. Winning a higher percentage of deals and winning bigger deals are prime examples of business impacts. While finding opportunities may be a prerequisite to winning, we’ve seen no evidence that organizations with high rates of marketing sourcing experience higher win rates, bigger deal sizes, or greater cost efficiency across the revenue engine. Simply put, higher rates of sourcing don’t equate to more revenue. “Businesses need marketing to deliver more than sourcing.” A sourcing focus undermines true alignment. To grow, a business does some combination of winning more deals, closing a higher portion of deals, winning bigger deals, and cost-effectively growing revenues. To make that happen, sales, marketing, product, and customer engagement functions must be fully aligned on the strategies that will drive growth and the approaches for making that happen. But a sourcing focus often encourages marketing behaviors that are misaligned with those growth strategies as marketers and their resources are directed at a sourcing goal. Consider an example where a business believes that the best way to deliver growth is by focusing on winning business in a sharply defined account universe, where marketing will rarely identify new opportunities before dedicated account managers become aware of them. In such a scenario, the business likely needs marketing support to expand engagement within an established buying group to increase probability of winning — yet a sourcing objective is entirely misaligned with the business’s requirement.
No reasonable discussion of B2B marketing and its mission can even debate marketing’s need to be an accountable contributor to the business and its revenue objectives. Yet despite the requirement that marketing prove its impact, the way that most B2B organizations have grown accustomed to demonstrating contribution is failing marketers, and it’s undermining marketing’s credibility. “According to Forrester’s 2020 B2B Metrics Study, marketing-sourced pipeline and marketing-sourced revenue metrics are featured on 47% of B2B marketing leadership dashboards, making them B2B marketing’s most commonly used performance indicators.” Sourcing Isn’t Working
Businesses need marketing to deliver more than sourcing. To consistently win business, B2B organizations must support their buyers across the entirety of their buying journeys. The days where buyers were willing to accept salespeople controlling the flow of information are long gone. Buyers make purchasing decisions at their own pace and drive their own information requirements at different points in their decision-making process. Buyers are demanding a fluid buying experience that intertwines self-service, seller-driven, and marketing-assisted information flow. Businesses can’t afford to have marketing step aside once demand has been identified. “To grow, a business does some combination of winning more deals, closing a higher portion of deals, winning bigger deals, and cost-effectively growing revenues.” Sourcing Metrics Will Spiral Toward Irrelevance
In Strategy
Sourcing isn’t a driver of business success. Winning a higher percentage of deals and winning bigger deals are prime examples of business impacts. While finding opportunities may be a prerequisite to winning, we’ve seen no evidence that organizations with high rates of marketing sourcing experience higher win rates, bigger deal sizes, or greater cost efficiency across the revenue engine. Simply put, higher rates of sourcing don’t equate to more revenue. “Businesses need marketing to deliver more than sourcing.” A sourcing focus undermines true alignment. To grow, a business does some combination of winning more deals, closing a higher portion of deals, winning bigger deals, and cost-effectively growing revenues. To make that happen, sales, marketing, product, and customer engagement functions must be fully aligned on the strategies that will drive growth and the approaches for making that happen. But a sourcing focus often encourages marketing behaviors that are misaligned with those growth strategies as marketers and their resources are directed at a sourcing goal. Consider an example where a business believes that the best way to deliver growth is by focusing on winning business in a sharply defined account universe, where marketing will rarely identify new opportunities before dedicated account managers become aware of them. In such a scenario, the business likely needs marketing support to expand engagement within an established buying group to increase probability of winning — yet a sourcing objective is entirely misaligned with the business’s requirement.
In Strategy
Businesses need marketing to deliver more than sourcing. To consistently win business, B2B organizations must support their buyers across the entirety of their buying journeys. The days where buyers were willing to accept salespeople controlling the flow of information are long gone. Buyers make purchasing decisions at their own pace and drive their own information requirements at different points in their decision-making process. Buyers are demanding a fluid buying experience that intertwines self-service, seller-driven, and marketing-assisted information flow. Businesses can’t afford to have marketing step aside once demand has been identified. “To make that happen, sales, marketing, product, and customer engagement functions must be fully aligned on the strategies that will drive growth and the approaches for making that happen.” Sourcing Metrics Will Spiral Toward Irrelevance
In Strategy