Marketers not held accountable for revenue growth
There is a marked misalignment between the objectives of marketing departments and the CEOs of large companies, according to the latest research from revenue performance management (RPM) firm Eloqua.
The company's latest survey found that only half (51%) of marketing departments have been set any form of revenue target, despite revenue growth being cited as the single most important metric for CEOs.
In fact, four times as many marketers (36%) surveyed cited revenue growth as being their CEO's top priority as those who cited customer satisfaction (9%). Increased revenues also trumped profits (23%), lead generation (21%), and brand awareness (11%).
The study also revealed that many businesses are not aligning marketing and sales teams' activities sufficiently to accelerate revenue performance. Only half of marketing and sales teams share performance objectives (48%) and more than a third (35%) don't view the same "dashboards" when analysing the sales funnel.
Many marketers also did not have visibility over which of their campaigns were converting to sales, with only 42% of marketers knowing the three highest and three lowest performing campaigns of the past year.
Following the study's findings, Eloqua has called for businesses to adopt an official RPM strategy to break down the silos and bottlenecks between sales and marketing functions, and to achieve better all-round visibility into the sales pipeline, as well as to accelerate revenue growth and more accurately forecast long-term revenue performance.
According to Stuart Wheldon, senior director of customer success and strategy for Eloqua, "Marketing's relationship with revenue has long centred on correlation, but RPM now moves companies toward 'causation'. It is clear from this study that marketing needs to better align its efforts with the C-suite's needs - and that means revenue growth."
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