To reach your business goals, your company requires a steady stream of strong leads linked to an effective sales force. New technologies and techniques are changing the game, so how does your organization compare to other firms?

• As a guideline, marketing should allocate 65% of its resources to demand generation and 35% to lead nurturing and management.¹
• 83% of companies are expected to adopt marketing automation solutions by 2009-2010.²
• 70% of leads generated by marketing are never acted on. Top companies mine inquiries to keep sales resources focused on sales-ready leads.³
• 62% of best-in-class companies are focused on lead scoring and lead prioritization as the top strategy for focusing sales efforts and reducing the sales cycle.⁴
• Marketers who shift from demand generation to closed-loop nurturing are two times more productive.⁵
• Companies that score and prioritize leads with marketing automation should pass about 5%-15% of all leads generated to sales (only leads qualified as ready to engage in the sales process).⁶
• Companies that have achieved marketing and sales alignment are growing 5.4% faster, closing 38% more proposals, and churning 36% fewer customers.⁷
• 90% of best-in-class companies are increasing return on their market investment year over year.⁸

References
¹ “Six Principles for Better Demand-Generation Tactics.” B2B Webcast, 2007
² “Automating Leads to Sales.” Aberdeen Group, 2007
³ “B2B Demand Generation: How Successful Companies are Improving Sales and Marketing Results.” vtrenz, 2007
⁴ “Automating Leads to Sales.” Aberdeen Group, 2007
⁵ “B2B Marketers Lack Lead Management Maturity.” Forrester Teleconference, 2006
⁶ “Six Keys to Lead Generation Success.” MarketingProfs, 2007
⁷ “Marketing ROI in 2007 – Moving Into the New Era of Marketing.” MarketingProfs, 2006
⁸ “Success Strategies in Marketing Automation.” Aberdeen Group, 2007