The Disconnect Between B2B Marketing Goals And Metrics

A study was recently conducted by B2B Marketing Marketing Community on trends in B2B marketing for 2013. The results of this study elucidate a real problem plaguing B2B content marketers in the digital age.

According to the study conducted by B2B Marketing Community on LinkedIn, 71% of B2B marketers cited lead generation as the number one goal of content marketing. This finding makes perfect sense as lead generation is the ultimate goal of all B2B marketing activities. What is more interesting is the number one metric that is used by these marketers to measure the effectiveness of their content marketing campaigns.

The most logical assumption, based on the number one goal of content marketers, would be that leads generated from marketing campaigns would be the main metric that content marketers use to measure their success. However, this is not the case; 63% of those involved in the study said that web traffic was their number one metric, while lead quantity was relegated to number 5 at only 46.1%.

The discrepancy between goals and metrics is highly perplexing, but when looked at objectively there is a logical answer for it.

How do you measure lead generation from content marketing?

Being able to measure ROI on social campaigns is an issue that has plagued B2B marketers and as a result many have shied away from social altogether. Not utilizing this amazing resource is causing many B2B’s to lose out on a large audience of potential leads. In a recent study posted on Forbes, nearly half of all CMO’s interviewed said they could not establish ROI of their social media campaigns and only a meager 15% said they were able to successfully prove its business value.

As it stands now, most marketers throw out as much content as possible and if they see an increase in lead generation coinciding with that distribution, they make the assumption that it was a result of their campaign. However, this is far from accurate. With this method, marketers are unable to see which post, message or social network provided the highest ROI. This valuable information is vital for formulating target market and correct messaging.

There are tools like Salesforce.com that help with tracking leads in the pipeline, however there is a severe lack of tools that allow for tracking of actual business value of social media activities.

Oktopost is the only B2B social media platform that lets B2B marketers see the actual ROI of their campaigns. Now B2B’s are able to see which messages had the most effect and which social networks and discussion groups converted the highest. With Oktopost, the biggest issue plaguing B2B marketers who use social as a content distribution channel is solved.

Oktopost is the only social media tool made specifically for the needs of B2B marketers that lets you see actual ROI for your social media campaigns. Get your 14 day free trial today.