To evolve marketing from a cost center into a revenue generator, marketers know they must measure the impact their campaigns have on revenue. Traditional measurements may become inferior and unable to scale to meet the needs of today’s B2B marketing professional.

To obtain optimal results, marketers need a powerful and efficient marketing analytics solution.

To harness the abilities of marketing analytics, marketing should understand the reasons and specific opportunities such a solution provides. To comprehend the benefits of a complete analytics package, let’s consider some of the ways  marketers will earn a competitive edge when they elevate the sophistication of their metrics.:

  • Predictable revenue forecasts – Marketing forecasts are traditionally measured in a longer time frame and provide more accurate long-term views of revenue. To effectively project these kinds of statistics, B2B marketing teams need to look at a marketing analytics solution that provides features including:

–   Forecast deals and bookings before they enter the sales cycle

–   Create analytic models that predict conversations between funnel stages over time

 

  • Justify marketing budget – As the marketing team progresses more into a revenue prediction role, justifying a B2B budget is evermore a challenge. With marketing analytics, marketers can quantify the precise revenue impact of marketing investment, giving the marketing team the tools to defend their budget.
  • Optimize marketing mix and spend – B2B marketing analytics helps marketers with the precise planning necessary to coordinate demand generation and lead nurturing programs. This helps when considering what’s working, what’s not working and the areas to focus on to eliminate waste. Some questions to ponder include:

 

–   What is the actual and estimate revenue attributed to each program?

–   What is the ROI for each marketing program?

To boost B2B marketing ROI, marketers need to look beyond traditional measurement of their marketing programs. Using marketing analytics, marketers create predictable marketing forecasts, justify marketing budgets and optimize their marketing spend while earning a seat at the revenue table.

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