This is the second of three posts discussing some of the B2B-specific findings of the August 2021 edition of The CMO Survey. I included a detailed description of the survey in my first post, so I won't repeat that description here.
The "Part 1" post discussed the economic outlook of B2B marketers and the state of marketing spending in B2B companies. In this post, I'll discuss what The CMO Survey reveals about the state of digital marketing in B2B companies.
The Digital Transformation of B2B Marketing
The general view is that B2B companies have been somewhat slower to adopt digital marketing than B2C companies. While this view may have been accurate in the past, The CMO Survey provides compelling evidence that many B2B marketers* have now fully embraced digital marketing techniques.
For example, survey respondents with B2B product companies said they are currently spending 50.6% of their total marketing budget on digital marketing activities. And respondents with B2B services companies reported devoting 61.9% of their budget to digital marketing. These percentages are comparable with those reported by survey respondents with B2C companies.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to digital marketing, and this shift is reflected in the growth in spending on digital vs. non-digital marketing. The following chart show how overall marketing spending and spending on digital marketing changed in the twelve months preceding the survey in B2B product companies and B2B services companies.
B2B marketers expect their investment in digital marketing to continue growing. The CMO Survey asked participants to estimate how their spending on digital marketing will change in the twelve months following the survey, compared to the twelve months preceding the survey. Respondents with B2B product companies said they expect their spending on digital marketing to increase 12.6%, while respondents with B2B services companies expect an increase of 16.0%.
Digital Marketing Maturity in B2B
The CMO Survey also revealed that B2B companies had made substantial progress on their digital marketing transformation efforts in the twelve months preceding the survey. The survey asked participants to rate their level of digital marketing transformation maturity using one of the following four categories:
- Nascent - "Early steps to design and visualize transformation"
- Emerging - "Build non-integrated digital elements"
- Integrated - "Fully integrate digital investments across company"
- Institutionalized/Established - "Leverage digital investments to drive and evaluate marketing decisions"
