New Chart: B2B Marketers’ Priorities for 2009: Part 2

Priorities for 2009: Part 2 – What’s Hard, What’s Easy, What’s at the Top of the List?

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Through several lenses, we began looking at marketers’ top priorities for 2009 last week. To do that, we cooperated with Babcock and Jenkins to survey marketers for B2B organizations with more than $250 million in revenue. Here is a second look.

But first, a refresher on the chart: The ‘x’ axis shows the percentage of marketers describing each tactic/goal as a ‘priority’ with ‘Identifying new audiences and quality lists’ getting the highest response. The ‘y’ axis shows how marketers perceive the degree of difficulty for each tactic/goal based on the internal expertise and resources required. For example, development of social media is regarded as ‘very challenging’ by more marketers than any other goal/tactic. Finally, the size of the bubble represents the percentage of firms engaged in a given tactic/goal.

“Mapping content to the sales funnel “ is an immensely important aspect of success in lead nurturing for the complex sale. It deserves to be among the top priorities because some of the others – Web 2.0, social media and traditional content – are at their most effective when mapped to the sales cycle.

The variety of combinations between purchaser roles, stages and pieces of content can be daunting. But content mapping isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Every step forward is worth taking.

To begin mapping content, start by creating a matrix in Excel. Lay out the stages in the sales funnel, the different purchaser roles, and the content you already have. Any gaps in the matrix will suggest the need for new content. Once you fill those, it may be time to look at the next stage in the evolution of your content mapping – more advanced targeting of your prospects.


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