MARKETING

REPORT CARD
KEEPING OUR SEAT AT THE TABLE
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 Introduction 23 Analytics, Alignment & Orientation

5 Executive Summary 27 Marketing Infrastructure

6 Current Perception of Marketing 28 Looking Ahead

10 Marketing’s Contribution to Objectives 29 Analyst Bottom Line

15 Marketing’s Leadership & Respect 30 Acknowledgements

18 Marketing’s Revenue Impact 31 About Pardot & Demand Metric

22 Marketing Skills 33 Appendix – Survey Background

INTRODUCTION
When viewed at the organizational level, marketing can take on several personas. In some organizations, it is reactive
and operationally oriented, managed by a marketing professional that is perpetually busy – the “hair on fire” type. In other
organizations, marketing exists as a strategic asset, providing leadership not just to the marketing team but also to the entire
organization because it is has a visionary leader with a plan that aligns beautifully with corporate strategy.

At the operational end of this marketing persona spectrum, marketing at best delivers incremental value, and it constantly
struggles to justify its budget and existence. At the strategic end of this spectrum, marketing is a major driver of the
organization’s success; it can easily prove its worth and it rarely has issues justifying its existence or the investment
made in it.

The marketing community at large has aspired to become more relevant by shifting from the operational orientation to
the strategic one. Financially, this shift is about moving from existing as a tolerated expense to a valued revenue center,
becoming more relevant in the process. This shift must continue if marketing wants to keep its seat at the leadership table. The
velocity of this shift at times seems glacial.

Pushing this progress along are the improved systems, tools, methods, channels, skills and leadership that marketers
are developing or exploiting. Creating drag against progress is an increasingly complex marketing environment, the difficulty
of attributing marketing activities to business results, and sometimes simply the culture within organizations that marketers
serve.

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INTRODUCTION
In a study sponsored by Pardot, Demand Metric conducted a survey to explore marketing’s evolution from a lead
generation service bureau to a strategic, center of influence and revenue engine. Answers to these questions were
pursued to better understand the current perception of marketing:

 How is marketing perceived internally?

 What level of influence does marketing have in the organization?

 How is marketing connecting its activities and programs to revenue results?

 How difficult is it for the marketing team to justify its budget?

 How current or “state-of-the-art” are the marketing team’s skills?

 How well equipped is the marketing team with technology infrastructure?

 How aligned are the sales and marketing teams?

These study results provide a record card of sorts, providing benchmark data useful for comparison, planning and improvement.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Primary research for this study was done using a survey, and the data analysis provides these key findings:

 Over half of organizations (59%) view marketing as either a necessary or unnecessary expense. Marketers are more
likely to view their own function as an expense (65%) than non-marketers (50%).

 As company size increases, marketing is more likely viewed as an expense, and less likely viewed as contributing to
achieving business objectives.

 Marketing organizations identified as “indispensable” in helping achieve business objectives are more strategically
oriented, have better alignment with sales, and use analytics to a greater extent to guide their efforts.

 The rest of the organization (45%) gives marketing more credit for having a complete understanding of its impact on revenue
than marketing itself does (34%).

 Over one-third of study participants report that justifying the annual marketing budget is difficult or very difficult.

 Marketing skills correlate strongly to revenue growth. Measuring skills of the marketing team on a scale from one to
seven where 1 = obsolete or lagging and 7 = state-of-the-art, the average was 4.8.

This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For more detail on the survey participants, please
see the Appendix.

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CURRENT PERCEPTION OF MARKETING
Figure 1: The dominant internal view of marketing is as an expense.
Most modern marketers understand the importance of
Internal Perception of Marketing having the marketing organization operate as a revenue
center, where marketing’s contribution to revenue is
60%
analytics driven and quantified. To exist as an expense
puts the marketing function in jeopardy, keeping it on
50% the short list for cutbacks when financial pressures
51%
arise.
40%
Even though they haven’t figured out how to transform their
30% organizations into revenue centers, CMOs pursue this
orientation. The first thing this study attempted to learn is
20% the financial perception of marketing inside the company.
21%
The survey sample for this study included members of the
10%
12% C-suite, marketing team, sales team and other corporate
8% 8% functions. Their aggregate perception of marketing is
0% summarized in Figure 1.
Unnecessary Necessary Breakeven center Modestly Highly profitable
expense expense profitable revenue center
revenue center
Over half of organizations perceive that marketing is an
expense, and further insights come from looking at the
responses to this survey question by role.
Marketing Report Card Benchmark Report, Demand Metric, March 2014, n=207

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