European Tech Marketing Continues To Be Different

This is a deep-dive data update to last year's report, "European Tech Marketing Is Different: Here's How," based on Forrester's Q4 2011 B2B Marketing Organizations And Investments Survey. Most of the points in that report are still valid except that UK marketers now outsource the least marketing work of all countries, while French and German outsourcing habits are now similar to North American levels. Overall, marketing has become more self-confident. Most French firms now rank marketing as strategic, even more than North American marketers. German and UK marketers are still somewhat introverted.
This update also reveals why European marketers align less with sales on setting goals than their North American counterparts. The French cannot agree on field programs; Germans aren't much better. Nor can German marketers and sales leaders collaborate well on lead qualification or mapping the customer buying process.
Marketing strength and weakness perceptions vary greatly across Europe. German marketers see themselves as creative and good at managing projects and resources but are most critical of their content creation and collaboration capabilities. French marketers claim to understand their markets well, but they worry most about change management and agreeing among themselves. UK marketers cite content creation as a strength, but see themselves as weak in mastering marketing operations tools and change management.