For years, B2B Marketing has been goaled on soft measures like awareness and more-recently leads. While neither have a role in contemporary B2B funnel management, measuring Marketing on revenue isn't the answer either. This isn't my 'prettiest' video blog, but this story was bubbling away and after a lengthy flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Poznan, Poland and I just had to let it out as soon as I landed.  

Some businesses change their tactics with the same amount of science as they used to choose them in the first place - none. Others get themselves into such a state about how to decide whether to change or not, that they analyse themselves to death.

Calculating the number of leads needed for a campaign seems simple. You can do it on the back of an envelope: Firstly, work out the real target: Consider your revenue target, reduce this by any annuity revenue to get your “sales target”.

According to our benchmark study of 1,400 businesses, one in three of them places alignment between the sales department and the marketing department as the No. 1 priority. Measurement makes a surprising contribution.

2-day module to learn how to dimension your funnel

The size of your sales funnel matters. How to Size the Funnel and Measure Progress outlines why, and how to get it right.

It details:

Most businesses have an accurate handle on the length of their sales cycle – the time that elapses between a lead being qualified and the closing of the deal. If your total sales cycle is six months, or three months, or twelve months, what does that mean and what can you change to improve results?

Inbound marketing isn't a well-known phrase to Australian marketers (yet!), but 2012 sees B2B marketers quickly catching on to the inbound marketing revolution. Inbound marketing refers to the art & increasingly the science of attracting buyers to your site, (getting found) converting them to leads (nurturing) and figuring out what is and isn't working (analytics). 

New data reveals that many B2B marketers are committing a major marketing no-no by failing to measure and report return on marketing investments to senior executives.

When was the last time you tested some part of your marketing? If it takes a bit of thought, you're probably not doing it enough. The problem with that is, even just a minor test can go a long way - improving traffic, leads, and even sales if done right.

B2B marketing may have universal properties. Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations. Enjoy the video, then our views on how this phenomenon plays out in the world of the funnel.