B2B Marketers' Love-Hate Relationship With Marketing Technology

Successful B2B marketers realize the importance of new marketing technologies, which is pretty evident in the fact that they invest more and more into those technologies. Marketing professionals do it because technology provides them with all the necessary tools that make their job easier. Another reason why they are so accepting of it is because modern technology has permeated every area of life, and is here to stay. But, new technologies do not come without their fair share of problems and growing pains. B2B marketers feel as if their jobs are becoming less creative because of it. They would rather come up with new and exciting campaigns than spend their time trying to make sense of all these new technologies.

And, despite marketers’ willingness to implement modern marketing technologies into their workflow, you will find the majority of B2B experts complaining about having to manage so many of them, much like college students when they are faced with assignment writing. In fact, according to research conducted by Leadspace, B2B marketers would rather spend their time focusing on the more traditional marketing endeavors, such as putting together new campaigns.

The research includes the findings of 32 B2B senior marketing experts, also known as the Martech Industry Council. It was done with a purpose of gaining an insight into how technology is affecting their work process, as well collecting their opinions on new marketing technologies. Marketing executives took part in the surveys in which they provided answers to the biggest challenges they face as B2B marketers.

Marketers Have a Tough Time Making Use of Technology

One of the reasons why this was done is because unlike their B2C colleagues, B2B marketers have very little to complain about when it comes to modern marketing technologies. However, even though they have all the data they need at their disposal, they are still struggling to use all that data to make their marketing efforts more effective. What can B2B marketers do to make their output better?

The research mentioned in the paragraph above included over 270 B2B companies. On average, these companies used around 16 marketing technologies in order to improve their workflow. However, the marketers in those firms pointed out that only 3% of those technologies were easy to implement. But, another problem is that 80% of all marketers don’t really like to spend time learning or using new marketing technologies, as can be seen in this infographic. 90% of them have stated that the thing they least like doing is managing data, and 84% of them don’t like developing campaign flows As much as 77% of them would prefer to focus their efforts on creating new marketing campaigns. 70% of them would prefer to work on new marketing programs.

Marketers Prefer the Creative Aspect of Their Jobs

On the other end of the spectrum is their dislike for data management, because about 90% of B2B marketers would rather do something else. The situation is not much different when it comes to developing or executing campaign flows, which is disliked by 84% of the marketers. 80% of them have described learning and/or using new marketing technologies as their least favorite aspect of B2B marketing.

After looking at these numbers, it is pretty easy to conclude that B2B marketers have a love-hate relationship with new marketing technologies. On one hand, they are aware of the fact that it makes their job easier and that it automates some of the processes. But, on the other, they don’t like to spend their time using them or learning how to use them.

Marketing Technologies Do Produce Results

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the crucial stats which explains this relationship a little bit deeper:

It is a well-known fact that all marketing, and that includes B2B, is driven by sales, and hence the need for technology which should improve those sales. Furthermore, the main goal for most marketers is better lead quality, as well as an increase in growth of finding new customers, and retaining old ones. As much as 70% percent of marketers agreed this was their top goal. 53% of them also pointed out that their sales teams’ top request was more qualified leads.

According to the result of the same survey, 45 % of B2B marketers labeled CRM as the essential technology which they rely on in their line of work. Not far behind were the Marketing Automation systems, which were labeled as essential by 37% of B2B marketers. However, these are only two technologies. The result of the survey also showed that there is a vast difference in the number of marketing technologies used across companies.

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Too Many Technologies

16 is the average number of technologies used by marketing companies, by there are large companies out there which use as much 98 different marketing technologies to boost their marketing efforts. However, the higher the number of technologies, the greater the frustration of marketers working for those companies. 50% of all marketers pointed out that having too many technologies at their disposal is their main source of frustration in the workplace. Also, coming in second was the integration of those marketing technologies, according to 49% of the marketers.

Another interesting finding of this survey was that marketers recognize the helpfulness of technology, but that they would rather focus on the more creative aspects of their jobs. 77% of them love putting together new campaigns. 70% of marketers love creating a new marketing program. Planning a major marketing event was their third favorite thing to do at 38%.

On the other hand, 80% of marketers labeled learning and using new marketing technology as their least favorite thing, despite its effectiveness. Developing and executing a new campaign flow was second on their list with 84%. Also, 89% of marketing experts labeled managing prospect data as the third thing they don’t enjoy about the job.

Conclusion

Whether marketers like it or not, new technologies are here to stay, because they do produce outstanding results. Technology has changed the job landscape forever, and there is no going back. Sure, marketing is a creative profession, but all these tools, apps, and data help make it effective in equal measure. It is no longer a shot in the dark. However, the designers need to do their part, as well, and make these solutions easy to integrate and use. Otherwise, they’re going to be more of a problem than a solution.

Author’s Bio:

After success as a senior marketing technology advisor for numerous international corporations, Hillary Hope became a freelance writer in Assignment masters to share her knowledge.