Your Best Prospects Aren't Filling in Your Forms

When Measurement Starts Driving Behaviour

Measurement matters. Marketing leaders need to know what’s working, make better investment decisions, and demonstrate commercial impact.

The problem comes when measurability starts determining what we value.

Form fills are easy to count, so we optimise for them. Downloads create identifiable leads, so we gate content. Activity close to conversion is easier to attribute, so it receives more credit.

Marketing can become increasingly efficient at generating things that are easy to measure without becoming more effective at creating demand.

A thousand leads aren’t particularly useful if none are likely to buy. Thought leadership read by ten people on your target-account list might be considerably more valuable.

But the dashboard may tell a different story.

The Form Has Become Too Important

Forms still have a role. Someone requesting a consultation, quotation or demo is signalling genuine intent and there is a clear value exchange.

The equation looks different when we’re asking buyers to exchange their data simply to access useful content.

If the objective is to demonstrate expertise, build authority and influence a future purchasing decision, hiding your best thinking can limit its ability to do that job.

Content doesn’t have to generate a lead to generate value.

Qualified Demand Is a Better Objective

The purpose of B2B marketing is to increase the probability that the right organisations choose you when they’re ready to buy. That process begins long before an enquiry. Buyers need to discover your organisation, understand why it’s relevant, recognise its expertise and build enough confidence to include it on the shortlist.

Some of those interactions will be measurable. Many won’t. Together, they create qualified demand.

That changes the question marketing should ask:

How many leads did this generate?

becomes

Did this increase the likelihood of the right buyers choosing us?

The second is harder to measure. But it’s considerably more useful to the business.

Better Measurement Needs a Wider Lens

No single metric or attribution model can explain a complex B2B buying decision.

Lead volume, qualified pipeline, revenue, branded search, target-account engagement, returning visitors, content consumption and conversion rates all provide evidence. So do sales conversations, which often reveal buying journeys that look very different from those recorded in analytics.

The objective isn’t perfect attribution. It’s enough evidence to make better investment decisions.

Measure what you can. Just don’t mistake what is measurable for everything that matters.

The Risk of Optimising the Wrong Thing

Pressure to demonstrate efficiency naturally pushes investment towards activities with short feedback loops and easily attributable returns.

But continually optimising the bottom of the buying journey can’t create an unlimited supply of future customers.

Demand has to come from somewhere.

Marketing still has to create awareness, establish expertise and build preference before a buyer becomes an identifiable prospect.

Concentrate investment solely on what can be immediately attributed and, eventually, there is less demand left to capture.

Your Best Prospect Might Be Invisible

Right now, someone could be researching a problem your organisation is perfectly placed to solve.

They’re not in your CRM. They haven’t downloaded your guide. They aren’t an MQL.

But they may already know your name, understand your proposition and be deciding whether you belong on their shortlist.

Some of the most valuable marketing will influence people who can’t yet be identified, through interactions that can’t be completely attributed, long before the commercial outcome can be measured.

That demands a more sophisticated view of marketing accountability.

Because your best prospects aren’t necessarily filling in your forms.

And by the time they do, much of marketing’s most important work should already have happened.

Need help?

If this has you rethinking how you measure marketing’s real contribution, or you simply want a second opinion on your demand generation approach, why not book a free 30-minute consultation with one of our B2B digital marketing experts? We’ll do our best to be helpful.