Three Things To Know About Digital Maturity in B2B Marketing In 2023

The world is changing faster than B2B marketers can keep pace. Generative AI has exploded onto the scene, the demand for personalized content continues to grow and B2B organizations are rapidly changing to accommodate the rise of digital-native millennial decision-makers in the enterprise.

So, what can companies do to adapt their digital marketing plans to drive results today, while building a strategy that’s resilient to whatever lies ahead? And, what are the key factors differentiating top-performing, digitally mature sales and marketing teams to keep them ready for the future?

To understand the state of digital maturity in B2B marketing and its impact on overall revenue growth, ON24 conducted a global survey of over 1,300 marketers in 16 countries. The study asked respondents about the key elements of digital maturity, including: 

• • Goal-setting and measurement practices
  • How digital channels are used to engage audiences
  • How digital engagement data is captured
  • How digital engagement data is used within the organization
  • How teams use martech to support execution 

The resulting report, “Ready for Growth: The State of Digital Maturity in B2B Marketing,” dives deep into these trends. Short on time? Here are three main points you need to know about the state of digital maturity in B2B marketing:

1. Companies with a mature digital engagement strategy deliver stronger performance

Regarding digital marketing maturity, our report finds an even distribution of novice and expert marketers across the field. Interestingly, though, we found that leaders in digital marketing maturity tend to correlate to company size, and most importantly, their ability to meet their business performance goals, including revenue targets, growth and expansion into new markets. 

Almost half, 41%, of the companies who exceeded their business goals described their marketing strategy as “expert.” Importantly, companies with higher digital maturity had less underperformance. Only 5% of high-maturity organizations missed their top business goal, compared to 17% of those with low-maturity.

2. Integrations separate marketing technology success from failure

When it comes to enablers of digital readiness and maturity for marketers, technology obviously plays a central role. In fact, high-maturity organizations are nine times more likely to use seven or more digital marketing technologies. 

However, as the volume of technology solutions increases, the differentiating factor for marketing technology success is based on how integrated these technologies are. High-maturity companies were four times more likely to state that their systems were well-integrated (60% vs. 15%). 

3. Engagement data is captured, but is not being leveraged by sales

There are conflicting messages when it comes to data capture and measurement. Most marketers know they must capture and centralize engagement data from across multiple systems. But while data is captured, it isn’t effectively shared with sales teams. 

For example, EMEA marketers are slightly outperforming their North American and APAC peers in capturing engagement data, with 87% in EMEA, compared to 81% in North America and 85% in APAC. 

But across all regions, less than one-third of marketers reported sharing engagement data with their sales teams, with data-sharing occurring amongst 25% of EMEA marketers, 21% of North America marketers and 8% of APAC marketers.

This lack of sharing data-informed insights is holding B2B marketers back. There is a tremendous opportunity to unlock sales teams’ potential by enabling them to find prospect interests and buying signals from this rich data source. 

Digital maturity drives better business outcomes

Research supports this hypothesis: as organizations with higher levels of digital maturity achieve stronger business outcomes, regardless of region. Simply stated: a company’s readiness to grow is dictated by digital marketing maturity. 

Focusing on driving engagement through digital channels leads marketing teams to enable better sales with engagement data that can be used to strengthen relationships and build market share. 

Discover more digital maturity insights when you download a copy of “Ready for Growth: The State of Digital Maturity in B2B Marketing.”