There’s been no shortage of surveys and stats in B2B marketing; here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones from the first six months of 2023
Apart from this blog, I produce a separate monthly email newsletter that curates articles and blog posts across marketing communications.
Many are about surveys and studies because the process of asking questions and seeking answers often produces useful findings. So, now that we are halfway through 2023, I went back through every newsletter published so far this year to review what’s made headlines.
Below is a list of statistics in a logical order around the marketing and sales cycle – with links to the source beneath each entry.
I should note that while most are explicitly relevant to B2B marketing, a few are not, yet I felt they had a certain level of applicability to B2B and so I have chosen to include them.
1. Increased marketing spend in uncertainty drives profit.
Upping marketing spend during disruptive periods can drive profits, says Gartner. “Those that increased spending were two times more likely to grow profits.”
Read more on Marketing Dive
2. Marketing leaders with personal customer connections get more out of their budget.
According to McKinsey, “Leaders who successfully create personalized connections with customers can boost marketing spend efficiency by 10% to 30%.”
Read more on McKinsey
3. Marketing technology spend remains high.
Six in 10 (60%) of businesses say they are increasing spending on marketing technology, services and personnel this year.
Read more on Martech
4. Social media marketing drives activity at the top of the marketing funnel.
“Half of US B2B marketers say that social media contributes most to achieving top-of-funnel goals, per Ascend2. Email (43%) and in-person/live events (34%) were the second- and third-most effective top-of-funnel tactics.”
Read more on eMarketer
5. One in five open your marketing email; 3 in 100 click through.
The average open rate in email marketing ~20%. The average click rate is ~3%.
Read more on Media Post
6. B2B content consumption signals buying intent.
A study including behavioral data and a poll of 38,000 B2B professionals finds the more B2B content your “audience consumes, the more likely they are to be closing in on a purchase decision.”
Read more on Sword and the Script
7. Focus on the long tail in B2B content to meet needs.
Senior tech leaders: “50% of respondents say they prioritize” B2B content that helps “them achieve a specific end goal.
Read more on Marketing Profs
8. Good content drives revenue.
“82% of marketers responding to the survey say that the importance of using content as a revenue driver has increased.”
Read more on Marketing Charts
9. SDRs in B2B conduct more than 100 outreach activities every day.
SDRs in B2B average 104 outreach activities leading to 3.6 “quality conversations” per day; prospects require on average 11.3 attempts in the SDR sequence.
Read more on Sword and the Script
10. Strong brands help close B2B sales deals.
“By the time a salesperson is in front of a customer they’ve done at least seven online research inquiries with around 90% already having a company in mind. This means a B2B purchase is increasingly being made based on the company’s brand.”
Read more on The Drum
11. B2B tech purchases are taking longer; involve more people.
Sale cycles have grown “from 4.9 months in 2019 and 6.2 months in 2022 to 6.5 months in 2023. And the average buying team is comprised of 25 people, versus 21 in 2019 and 16 in 2017.”
Read more on Media Post
12. Not just people, but more departments are involved in B2B purchases.
More than half (55%) of B2B sales involve 2-4 people in one or more departments.
Read more on Marketing Charts
13. SaaS benchmarks for closing deals.
“Deals less than $25,000 in ACV should close on average within 90 days. Deals less than $100,000 in ACV should close on average within 90-180 days depending…Deals greater than $100,000 in ACV will take on average 3–9 months to close.”
Read more on SaaStr
14. There is simply more competition in B2B markets.
“B2B buyers are including more brands in their consideration set during the purchase journey and are becoming more likely to choose a new brand over an incumbent.”
Read more on Marketing Charts
15. Lower prices seduced buyers from trusted brands.
Seven in 10 (70%) of consumers “are willing to shift from a trusted brand to obtain a better price.”
Read more on Media Post
16. Business leaders say brand trust improves margins.
“91% of business executives say their ability to build and maintain trust improves the bottom line.”
Read more on PwC
17. Personalized recommendations yield larger orders.
“Shoppers who click on a personalized product recommendation average a 26% higher order value compared with those who don’t, and a majority (52%) now expect offers to always be personalized.”
Read more on Bain
18. Customer marketing is a B2B priority.
More than half (57%) “of respondents said that customer marketing is an area they will be optimizing for growth this year.”
Read more on Marketing Charts
19. Predicting SaaS churn.
“When a customer champion leaves, there is a 51% chance that the account churns within the next 12 months.”
Read more on ChurnZero [disclosure: client]
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As a side note, I still see marketers using that infamous statistic about goldfish, our brains and the human attention span. It’s not true at all.
Where did it come from? It’s based on a report by Microsoft published in 2015 and never “never once mentions the magic eight-second number at all. It doesn’t mention goldfish either.”
In other words, our brains do not have the attention span of goldfish.
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The Basic Benefits and Drawbacks of Owned, Shared, Earned, and Paid Media
Image credit: DALLE, “executives looking at a calendar planning the rest of the year in the style of van Ghoh.”
