Barbie Mattie

What share of marketing budget should go toward technology? How can marketing leaders spend money to make money? Here, we answer some of the questions we've been hearing since we published our planning guide for B2B marketing executives.

As prolonged economic unpredictability introduces the potential for short-termism, CMOs should look to their marketing ops leader for guidance.

To thrive in a turbulent year, B2B marketing leaders will need to spend strategically. Taking cues from fast-growing companies can help.

While definitions vary, the modern, Western-world concept of a sandwich is two slices of bread with filling in between. When analyzing a survey question from Forrester’s Marketing Survey, 2022 (during lunch), it became apparent that high-growth (>20% increase in annual revenue) companies and companies with flat-to-declining annual revenue both will use the same proverbial slices […]

Only one in 10 startups lasts longer than 10 years. In her latest blog post for Forrester, analyst Barbie Mattie shares how she wants to help increase those odds. Take our five-minute survey and learn how!

• It takes an optimal combination of people, process and technology for an emerging company to achieve hypergrowth (more than 41 percent annual revenue growth)
• What emerging companies plan to do over the next two years can be used as a roadmap to hypergrowth
• Use multiple data views to slingshot your emerging company into hypergrowth

• It takes an optimal combination of people, process and technology for an emerging company to achieve hypergrowth (more than 41 percent annual revenue growth)
• Data on the people, process and technologies from companies experiencing hypergrowth can be used to determine that optimal mix
• Use this data to slingshot your emerging company into hypergrowth

• The emerging company martech stack can have significant impact on annual revenue growth
• Rapid growth cannot be achieved through technology alone
• There needs to be a delicate balance between people, skills, process and technology

• Without a structured approach, emerging companies tend to develop marketing plans based on what they have done before
• As a result, marketing plans can be biased toward execution and/or lack alignment with business goals
• Emerging companies need a template that enables the creation of a unified, actionable plan that ensures alignment to business goals

• Search engine optimization (SEO) is a good source of organic growth that many emerging B2B companies underuse
• Most emerging B2B companies use some form of SEO and/or search engine marketing, but it’s not a high priority
• Emerging companies are 94 percent less likely to enhance search skills than companies with $50 million to $250 million in revenue

• SiriusDecisions has identified five planning assumptions that should drive the agenda of emerging companies in 2017
• The decisions emerging companies make today will have a direct impact on the likelihood of crossing the difficult-to-breach $50 million revenue line
• The three mantras for emerging companies in 2017 are formalize process, drive alignment and focus on the buyer

• Before purchasing technology, emerging companies should assess data quality and availability, and content readiness
• Technology saturation is reached when there is a surplus of marketing technology but too few people and processes to utilize it
• Companies reach the right balance between people, process and technology at the $151 million to $250 million revenue range

• Findings of the 2016 Global CMO study indicate that emerging.companies (under $50 million in revenue) do not have a firm definition of the campaign process.
• Emerging.companies are 38 percent less likely to use the campaign planning process and 97 percent less likely to add campaign managers than $51 million to $250 million.companies.
• Emerging.companies can and should run integrated campaigns, even with limited resources.

• Data shows that 35 percent of CMOs at emerging companies are challenged with generating high-quality leads
• Companies typically transition lead qualification from an outsourced to an insourced activity when they reach between $51 million and $250 million in revenue
• At under$50 million in revenue, lead qualification is usually adopted and between $51 million and $250 million is when it is operationalized

• Typically, the definition of “attract” for Web conversion optimization is used to describe how to get visitors to your Web site though various inbound and outbound strategies
• That definition doesn’t account for the eight components you need on your Web site in order to be attractive to buyers
• Changing the definition to include how best to capture the visitor’s attention once they get to your site ensures a seamless transition to visitor’s engaging with your site

• The chief of staff’s level of influence is often misunderstood by B2B marketers
• The chief of staff decides what is important enough to warrant the attention of the C-level executive
• Emerging companies, which tend to be more nimble, have an opportunity to market to this forgotten persona