I hate waste. Whether it’s throwing away uneaten food, or discarding unnecessary packaging, I do everything I can to minimize it. Wasting time and effort is also highly frustrating (though perhaps less harmful for the environment). So I found my stress levels rising when I was preparing data snapshots from Forrester’s new Portfolio Marketing Survey.
What especially struck me was the amount of work being done that was not used as widely as intended. Take personas for instance… Less than a quarter were using personas to develop messaging (24%), and only fractionally more to develop content (28%), or website design (26%). Just 37% used personas as part of their sales enablement efforts. All of which begs the question, if personas aren’t being used for these activities, what are they being developed for?!
The story was equally bleak when it came to using messaging… Only around a quarter were using their messaging in their sales training (25%), sales collateral (22%), events (21%), brand (26%) and campaigns (26%). 53% of respondents said less than half of their sales enablement materials were being by sales – a huge waste of budget and effort.
The one bright spot…? These numbers were substantially more positive among the high performing companies that took part in the survey – those for whom over 70% of their offering were meeting their revenue targets, showing that it pays to take the time to do these things to a high standard and roll them out effectively.
So let’s rally behind minimizing waste in B2B marketing. I don’t just mean purchasing more sustainable gifts or running more sustainable events, but for all our marketing endeavours. Forrester clients can use the following links to understand more about activating personas, messaging activation, and enabling buyer facing roles, to make sure that nothing goes to waste. Or you can become a client here to find out more!
