Findings Show Organizations Are Turning More to Technology and Shifting Their Internal Priorities Toward Greater Alignment and Use of Third-Party Data as They Strive for Efficiency

Demandbase, the Smarter GTM company that uses AI to help B2B organizations hit their revenue goals, announces the results of its 2023 C-Suite Go-to-Market (GTM) Benchmark Survey in partnership with Demand Gen Report. The survey gathered responses from 200 high-level B2B leaders across marketing and sales to better understand how the industry is changing and the GTM approaches that separate successful companies from the rest. Through this research, Demandbase uncovered how teams are handling the current economic landscape, trends in their technology use, the GTM strategies and practices that are driving growth, and more.

“In the year since our last survey, we’ve seen increased challenges in the B2B industry, but there has been just as much — if not more — progress,” says Jon Miller, chief marketing officer at Demandbase. “Many companies are being forced to cut budgets, but our research reveals that tech stacks are the least likely to be cut, demonstrating that teams recognize technology’s value in driving efficiency. Additionally, more leaders are viewing GTM through a broader lens than they did in 2022, which is paving the way for greater internal alignment and a more holistic approach to campaigns and tactics. Overall, B2B leaders are recognizing that what worked in the past isn’t working today, causing them to place a premium on efficiency and, ultimately, a Smarter GTM™.”

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Important findings from the report include:

Key Priorities that Promote Growth & Efficiency

• Respondents marked customer acquisition and customer expansion as the top two efforts they rely upon most to drive growth.
• Leaders indicated their top three priorities are improving alignment (66%), increasing win rates (63%), and increasing marketing investments (56%).
• Leaders were also more likely to cater to self-service needs than laggards, with many reporting they’ve enabled such options to streamline operations. In particular, they’re using demo videos (48%), interactive demos (41%), online calculators (40%), and product tours (39%).

An Evolving View of Metrics

• The primary metrics that marketers are being measured on today include total revenue (18%), marketing qualified leads (MQL) (16%), marketing-influenced revenue (12%), and marketing-sourced revenue (10%).
• SDR and BDR success is primarily being tracked by activity (35%), opportunities (34%), meetings (17%), and points-based (10%).

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Internal Alignment Relied on to Increase Efficiency

• Encouragingly, 52% of respondents reported that they do not struggle with alignment, with roughly half of sales responders saying they’re aligned with marketing and roughly half of marketers saying they’re aligned with sales. While this shows improvement over last year, it still means that nearly half have work to do in this area that can help drive efficiency and results.
• Of those who continue to struggle with alignment, their top challenges include looking at different data/operating in different systems (45%), being measured on different metrics (37%), poor handoffs (33%), and lack of communication (25%). These are roughly in line with the primary challenges from last year’s study, reinforcing the fact that these issues must be addressed if companies are to achieve greater alignment.

The Changing Data Landscape 

Data has become necessary for nearly all elements of modern marketing, but the survey revealed that practitioners are still facing difficulties with getting it right.

• Specifically, respondents cited the following challenges: data quality (dirty, out of date, duplicates) (55%), missing or incomplete information (50%), disconnected/siloed data sources (40%), actioning data (34%), and an inability to digest data the way they want (34%). While the first four obstacles were also cited in last year’s study, the inability to digest data how they’d like to is a new — and far-reaching — problem brought to the surface this year.
• Today, third-party data is primarily being used for competitive intelligence (61%), account prioritization (55%), personalizing messaging and outreach (54%), account selection (43%), and timing engagement (28%). This last number reveals that almost 75% of respondents are missing a great opportunity to use intent data to show up at the right time, when buyers are in-market and most likely to buy.

Based on the results of the 2023 C-Suite Go-to-Market (GTM) Benchmark Survey, it’s clear that successful B2B organizations today are focused on improving their GTM strategies to address the uncertainties presented by an unstable economy. Leaders shared many priorities and approaches, including incorporating third-party data, adopting a singular platform/data source, viewing GTM through the lens of all revenue-generating activities, investing in technology and efficiency, and prioritizing self-service buying experiences.

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