B2B Marketers Must Measure Lead Gen Costs

Executive demand for marketing accountability increases every year. But firms that sell considered products with long sales cycles struggle to quantify how their marketing efforts contribute to sales success. Nearly one-quarter of business-to-business (B2B) marketers don't currently measure individual lead costs yet our clients are constantly asking us how much their peers are spending on their lead acquisition efforts. Instead of worrying about how campaign costs and demand generation efforts measure up to their peers, B2B marketers should introduce disciplined, consistent measurement across the buying cycle. "Baseline!" — not "benchmark!" — is the battle cry of B2B marketers who drive down lead-generation costs while driving up sales productivity.