A recent survey report from ResearchCorp and Pinpointe collected input from sales and marketing decision makers of medium and large enterprises.  This report, Marketing Automation Survey: Cross the Chasm, was conducted in August 2008 and was designed to gain insight on the following three questions:

• What are the top challenges that keep marketing and sales professionals up at night?
• What infrastructure do companies have in place to address SFA and marketing automation?
• What is the ‘state of the market’ with respect to SFA and marketing automation implementations?

Results showed that keeping prospect databases ‘clean’ and useful was the top challenge keeping Marketing Executives up at night. Not far behind poor data was the ability to calculate meaningful ROI from marketing spend and getting enough quality leads to keep the sales machine properly fueled came in third. The graph below lists other concerns mentioned.

Poor data still topping the list…I’m not surprised.  Exactly 2 years ago, Forrester Research (B2B Marketing Needs a Makeover) also listed data problems at the top of the challenges list. Top 3 challenges in this report included: reaching decision-makers, measuring marketing results, improving lead quality and generate more leads.

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Do data problems top your list of challenges?  If not, please share what keeps you up at night.