The CMO Council’s study, “Lead Flow That Helps You Grow,” examined how sales organizations are uncovering new prospects, and found that most companies are struggling to create compelling content that engages decision makers and produces quality leads. Not only do marketers lack a common understanding of what constitutes a sales lead, the study says, but they also are not working effectively with sales and business development groups.

“Generating demand and ensuring the consistent flow of high-quality, actionable leads is paramount to the success of today’s business-to-business marketer,” says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “Sales enablement and pipeline performance remain key mandates as organizations look to fine-tune their content marketing practices to be high-performance growth engines.”

The study’s North America-based research was conducted with NetLine Corporation, a lead generation content provider, and draws from a survey of more than 200 marketing leaders across many industry sectors second quarter 2015.

Takeaways from the study include:

  • 12 percent of marketers believe their content marketing systems target the right audiences with relevant and persuasive content. They are also not using multiple distribution and syndication channels.

  • Most view their content marketing process as ad hoc, decentralized and driven by internal stakeholder interests.

  • Just 21 percent of marketers say they are total partners with their sales and business development counterparts when it comes to developing the strategy and measuring the effectiveness of demand generation programs.

  • Some 22 percent of marketers believe sales teams are too often a roadblock and detractor and are rarely a contributor to the content marketing value chain.

The “Lead Flow That Helps You Grow” research report is available here.