6 Marketing Stats That Give Me Chills

Although I’m frightened by the standard scary stuff as everyone else (haunted houses, demon possessions, small talk at networking events), as a marketer I’m also confronted daily by facts that make my hair stand on end.

There’s a lot of bad marketing and decision-making going on, which leads to some results and statistics that are as dangerous to companies’ success as Ghostface is to teens who wander away from the house party.

1. Only 44% of B2B marketers have a documented content strategy. (source)

This is like a custom home builder constructing a home for an owner they’ve never spoken to. They don’t know the family’s needs: number of bedrooms and bathrooms, one story or two, what colors and finishes they like.

You can’t create content for your audience if you don’t know who that audience is, what challenges they’re facing, and how what you do makes their lives easier.

2. The average small business spends $1,200 on PPC (pay-per-click) per month and wastes more than one-quarter of that total. (source)

Few things burn through money faster than a mismanaged pay-per-click account. PPC is a complicated beast, requiring a great deal of knowledge and time to set up and run successfully. If you’re not excited about the prospect of taking on that responsibility, consider hiring a third-party manager to do so for you. Stop wasting that $3600 every year.

3. When asked to select up to 3 of the most significant organizational barriers to digital transformation, a leading 39% of respondents indicated the lack of a “burning platform,” citing no sense of urgency. (source)

Are those fiddle strains I hear over the sound of Rome burning?

The writing is on the wall, folks:

• Consumer trust in traditional advertising is down
• 71% of us use mobile search to learn more about a product or service after seeing an advertisement
• Buyers’ “decision journeys” circumvent traditional advertising and sales funnels

Marketing has changed, and will continue to. Anyone who can’t see that and start developing ways to work within the new paradigm will fail.

4. 46.1% of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of the company. (source)

This number is scary because there are so many bad websites out there, and it doesn’t take much to lose a consumer’s trust.

Case in point: While recently considering financial service companies with whom to set up a workplace savings plan, I wanted to check out the list of mutual funds in which a particular company is able to invest my money.

The page on which these fund families were listed was (and still is) broken. Some of the family names wander up into the header or into the disclaimer information at the page’s bottom, making them unreadable and difficult to select. This company can’t properly manage a simple list of links, and I’m meant to trust my retirement fund to them?

If your website sucks, so will your lead generation. You don’t have to build the Taj Mahal of websites; just make sure it looks good and has the information your audience wants.

5. 39% of marketers have no strategy for mobile email. (source)

This despite mobile open rates hitting 47% earlier this year. Cue the horror movie music!

6. 80% of marketing leads wind up lost, ignored, or discarded. (source)

This might have something to do with the fact that 73% of companies have no process for re-engaging and nurturing leads after sales. That’s like making a great Halloween costume, trick-or-treating for hours, then dumping your uneaten candy into the back of your closet.

Develop buyer personas. Create content that engages those individuals, and funnel them into a CRM that allows you to send nurturing emails and newsletters. Don’t let perfectly good Halloween candy go to waste.

Further reading

• 3 Marketing Tactics it’s Time to Ditch
• Go Mobile or Go Home

[Image: Moyan Brenn]