Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020 2020’s biggest challenges Sales vs marketing: is the war over? Is the future of trade shows at risk?
ShipServ ran a survey for sales and marketing teams in the marine industry. The survey was conducted early in 2020 and most of the respondents were senior managers. We’d like to sincerely thank all the sales and marketing professionals for taking the time to contribute to this survey.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
Contents 1
Greater focus on customer retention
2 Marketing outlook
10 Sales outlook
3 Sales vs Marketing: is the war over?
11 Bucking the trend
4 Marketing spend: moving from ‘traditional’ to online
12 Challenges facing Sales in 2020
5 Online leading the way for lead generation 6 Are the future of trade shows at risk? 7
Challenges facing marketing in 2020
8 Is marketing missing the target?
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9 High confidence in marketing
Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
13 About ShipServ
Executive summary
Retaining existing customers is the top priority highlighted by marketing teams … it follows a trend emerging in other industries, recognising retention as the key to profitability.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
This report captures the key challenges that sales and marketing professionals in the marine industry face.
teams highlighted retaining existing customers as their top priority for 2020. While we were not anticipating this result, it follows a trend emerging in other industries, recognising retention as the key to profitability.
We received responses from over 350 participants and their input has presented an in-depth picture of what sales teams and marketing teams were focused on pre-pandemic, at the beginning of 2020, to achieve their goals.
Sales and marketing not getting along is a fact of life in many organisations – it’s a constant battle of playing the blame game. This doesn’t appear to be the case with our respondents as a significant proportion indicated that the two departments seemingly work well together.
The overarching sentiment is that marine marketers are becoming more agile, despite obvious challenges. While they are seemingly winning the lead generation war, they are also pivoting their focus towards customer retention. Marketing
The marine industry has a long-held reputation for getting most of their business from relationships and shunning innovations in technology. Our research shows signs that
marketing at least is moving away from this reputation as bigger proportions of their budget are now being spent online. The tide has turned it seems. Finally, it is important to remember that the survey was completed before the COVID-19 virus had spread significantly beyond Asia at a point where companies were operating under normal conditions. The pandemic has shown us a number of things, one of which is that the challenges facing sales and marketing uncovered in this survey have been exacerbated significantly. Much of what applied at the start of 2020 applies now. It is only the emphasis that has changed.
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THE SURVEY RESULTS
Greater focus on customer retention
Which is your highest priority: customer retention or winning new business?
In a post-pandemic world, the market has changed undoubtedly. Against the backdrop of a global recession, sales and marketing departments shifting priorities from growth to survival is to be expected. However, it seems that this shift in focus was already apparent at the beginning of 2020 before the pandemic hit. In the survey, 43% of respondents in sales and marketing are prioritising customer retention ahead of winning new business.
While initially surprising, customer retention has risen to the top of agendas across other industries to drive profitability. The Silicon Valley start-ups who forged blindly ahead with rapid, ambitious expansion plans that resulted in steep falls and consistent quarterly losses are now beacons of caution. Other industries are learning from this and are pivoting away from acquisition to retention to ensure sustainable growth. On average, it costs five times more to attract a new customer* than it does to retain one, while increasing customer retention by just 5% leads to a 25%–95% increase in profit. Faced with those stats, focusing on retaining your existing customers is a no-brainer.
*”Don’t spend 5 times More Attracting New Customers, Nurture The Existing Ones”, Forbes
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
43% 34% 23%
Greater focus on retaining/ growing existing customers
Equal focus between two
Greater focus on winning new business
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Marketing outlook
How do you rate your company’s marketing output and results?
Overall, the outlook for marketing is positive. A healthy 50% of marketing respondents rated their efforts and activities as good to excellent. Unexpectedly, sales rated marketing’s output and results even higher than marketing did. Surely this is testament to how well the two departments seem to work together (as highlighted later in the survey)? When asked why they had not scored their efforts higher, 43% of marketing respondents placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of senior management. One commented:
54%
50% 40%
“ The lack of support from management and a poor understanding of what marketing does. Marketing has an anorexic budget – just 0.15% of revenue.”
31% 19%
Another said:
“ Upper management doesn’t understand the value in marketing.” This point of view is not new and is prevalent amongst leaders across multiple industries. But why? Quite often it comes down to their misguided perception and understanding of what marketing actually involves.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
6% Good to Excellent
According to sales
OK
According to marketing
Bad
This is backed up by Jen Pike, founder of Rockethouse Consulting, who in a Forbes article deduced that:
“ When people argue that marketing doesn’t matter, they usually have a different meaning of what marketing is than those who understand how marketing contributes to firm performance.” She continues:
“ Those who often misunderstand marketing believe that it is only about advertising campaigns and media plans.”
What IS marketing about for those that think it contributes to company performance? A small proportion of respondents identified the ‘slow adoption of new technology’ as a reason for not giving their company’s marketing efforts a higher rating. In spite of the widespread technological explosion, many marine companies remain behind the curve still using pen and paper, and software tools from 30 years ago. It is well known that the maritime industry has historically been slower to implement technology changes. But perhaps this is becoming the exception rather than the norm, which is reflected in the small number of respondents who highlighted lack of technology as an issue. We know of many shipping companies who have successfully forged ahead with embracing new technologies – like ShipServ – to simplify their management of RFQs and quotes for example.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
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Sales vs Marketing: is the war over?
How well do your sales and marketing teams work together?
Although both share the same business goal, very often sales and marketing teams don’t get along and enjoy a love/ hate relationship. In direct contrast to this stereotype, the survey shows that most sales and marketing teams in marine work very well together, with 90% rating the relationship between the two departments as OK or good. The ‘us versus them’ feud seems to be no more – at least amongst these respondents.
61%
29%
10% of respondents felt the relationship between their sales and marketing teams was poor, and it’s the reasons why that makes interesting reading. Alongside communication, the age-old corporate mentality that sales are superior to marketing is still present in some organisations. One respondent commented:
“ Our company has the mentality that Sales is God and can do no wrong. Every other department that supports sales is treated like a red-headed stepchild.”
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
10% Good/Well
OK
Badly
What is the most accurate statement of the leads that marketing generated in 2019?
This ‘love-in’ with sales and marketing is further supported by the response to the question: “What is the most accurate statement of the leads that marketing generated in 2019?” The overriding sentiment among salespeople is that marketing is providing them with good enough leads.
• Over 57% of respondents felt that marketing produced good quality leads.
43%
• However, 42% said that while the leads marketing produced were of good quality, they did not produce enough.
42%
15%
Marketing did not produce enough leads, AND the quality was NOT good.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
Marketing did not produce enough leads, BUT the quality was good.
Marketing produced enough leads, AND the quality was good.
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Marketing spend: moving from ‘traditional’ to online Marine marketing has made a necessary shift to more measurable, transparent methods that are able to demonstrate a clear ROI aka online marketing.
What % split of suppliers’ media/promotion budget is spent online? % of their media budget spent online by band 80–100%
32%
60–79%
31%
40–59%
• A staggering 63% spend 60% or more of their marketing budget on online activities. For a historically traditional industry, this is very encouraging that marketing teams understand the value of online marketing and are investing in digital methods to achieve their objectives.
0%
25%
20–39%
0–19%
12%
% of survey respondents who fit into this online band
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
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Online leading the way for lead generation
While the reach of digital media is everywhere in blogs, social media and various types of content vehicles like case studies or white papers, our research shows that email is still far and away the most relied upon marketing mechanism to generate leads. It is affordable, trackable and delivers results. • A healthy majority recognises various online marketing activities, including remarketing (88%), SEO (86%) and a ShipServ Profile (74%), as being good lead generators. This is in line with the response to the previous question regarding budget allocation between offline and online marketing. Interestingly:
• 87% recognise PR activity as a good lead generator. This is somewhat at odds with the shift to more measurable methods of marketing, as PR has a reputation for being notoriously difficult to measure. Typically, ROI is often talked about in terms of media impressions and number of placements, but these metrics don’t mean much if they don’t meet the goals of the business.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
In 2019, how well did the following generate good leads for your company?
96%
Remarketing
88%
PR activity
87%
Organic search SEO)
86%
Trade shows
77%
ShipServ profile
74%
Online banners
71%
LinkedIn promoted posts
66%
Print/magazine advertising
65%
Paid search (PPC)
64%
However, if marine suppliers recognise PR activity as being a good lead generator, it can be assumed that they must measure and track it sufficiently to know whether it generates leads or not. HubSpot suggests using Google Analytics to track referral traffic or backlinks from trusted sites as alternative metrics to display tangible results of PR activity. The focus on PR activity may also be explained by the significant change in the perceived importance of brand within shipping and other related industries over the past decade. Against increasing competition throughout the supply chain, more shipping companies are realising that it genuinely matters in business how people perceive you. If they like, trust and respect you, they are far more likely to buy from you, work with you and invest in you. An Axios Harris poll showed that US citizens trust organisations more than the government to keep the country running – a result that is largely down to supply chain professionals. Michael Gravier, Professor of Marketing and Global Supply Chain Management at Bryant University said:
“ The people have spoken. They approve of companies addressing social and societal issues, and not just keeping us stocked with the essentials.” Gravier believes that organisations in the supply chain will capitalise on their success in gaining the public’s trust by demonstrating commitment to social justice and taking serious action against inequality:
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
“ This is a holistic marketing approach where the organisation as a whole is more present and valuable in marketing and sales than the individual services or goods. As the year progresses, companies will search for ways to ride this wave of goodwill to greater profitability without losing the public’s trust.”
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Are the future of trade shows at risk? 77% of respondents rated trade shows as being a good means of lead generation – ranking them middle of the pack compared to other lead sources. Given that trade shows are now postponed until 2021 or indeed indefinitely (for the foreseeable at least), marketers will need to look for alternatives to generate leads. We should expect to see a greater shift to organic search, content and ShipServ profiles, which were rated as a good means of lead generation by respondents. Again, this reflects the general trend to move away from media where engagement and tangible ROI are not clear.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
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Challenges facing marketing in 2020 The biggest challenge according to respondents is retaining existing customers, which is in line with the high priority that teams are placing on customer retention. The fact that 36% of respondents believe this will cause them the most problems indicates that while it is a high priority, it is by no means easy to achieve. Tellingly, the global pandemic had started to bite when this survey came out, as several commenters mention the lockdown and COVID-19 as already causing problems. An increasing focus on resilience because of the pandemic will lead to a more strategic marketing approach according to Michael Gravier.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
He says that pre-COVID-19, there was too much focus on efficiency and driving costs low, which pushed organisations to single source more than they should have. This reduced inventories to a point where an emergency lost them sales and customers.
“ Supply chain companies will focus more on helping customers become more resilient. This will boost business for ‘middlemen’ like 3PLs – a lot of companies will need help to diversify their supply chain sources, and to a lesser extent they will help customers to diversify their markets. “ In other words, supply chain marketing will become more strategic in nature, and focus on taking on greater responsibility for the supply chain functions in customer companies.” 31% said dealing with a low budget would cause them the most problems in 2020 and would not allow them to meet their objectives. Financially restricted marketing departments are commonplace during economic downturns.
What are your biggest marketing challenges this year? Retaining existing customers
36%
Generating required traffic and leads
35%
Budget too low to achieve objectives
31%
Selecting and using marketing technology
24%
21%
Managing website Hiring and retaining marketing talent
14%
Working with sales teams
14%
Proving ROI of marketing activities
13%
Total marketing workload too high
12%
Analytics/tracking/ distribution Training marketing team
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
10%
6%
Marketing is typically easy to cut but doing so is today’s equivalent of ‘bleeding’ – an old-fashioned but once widespread treatment that actually reduces the patient’s ability to fight disease. During unsettled times, the key is not to stop spending money but instead change how you spend it, which is perhaps the purpose of a low budget: it forces teams to think more carefully about where to spend. Ideally, such decisions will be based on sufficient ROI data but given that 10% of respondents identified analytics and tracking to be an issue, this may be easier said than done for many. How can marketing teams make data-driven decisions around budget allocation without proper tracking and analytics in place?
How can ShipServ help you overcome these challenges? As outlined above, there are many challenges facing modern marine marketing professionals. The biggest ones as per the answers in the survey are:
• Retaining existing customers (36%) • Generating required traf f ic and leads (35%) Maintaining relationships with marine buyers is more important than ever. The ShipServ platform offers smarter and more efficient transaction management. This ensures a more responsive, collaborative relationship between suppliers and buyers, helping to provide a high level of service. For marine suppliers, increasing exposure to buyers is needed to drive traffic and generate leads. Taking up a Premium Profile enables this. Displayed on ShipServ Search, the largest search engine for marine, a Premium Profile enables you to stand out from your competitors and supercharge views from buyers.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
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Is marketing missing the target?
Is the marketing team tasked with providing a set number of leads to the sales team in 2020?
The response to the question: ‘In 2020, does the marketing team have a target number of leads to provide to sales?’ was a little unexpected. Surprisingly, more than half of marketing teams do not have a leads target. This seems like a missed business opportunity to improve performance for the company. When planning marketing activities, it is best practice to ensure they deliver on the financial goals of the company. If financial goals are unclear and lead targets undefined, no activity will be able to deliver on ROI or timelines.
“ There is too much shotgun marketing in the marine industry, from my observation. Companies often shoot from the hip, trying this or that, hoping one idea will stick and deliver. Fewer even consider measuring their marketing initiatives in order to analyse what works.” This was a comment made by Kenton Smith, president of Kenton Smith and the Marine Marketers of America in 2010. Fast forward a decade and there still seems to be some truth to this.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
57% 43%
No
Yes
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High confidence in marketing Our research shows that confidence in marketing was high at the start of 2020, with 26% of sales people expecting the marketing department to meet targets set for lead gen. How high that is now remains subjective. Kimberly Hegg, Director, Marketing & Communications at W&O Supply says:
“ Internally, our overall approach has improved. We have far more conference calls, which has meant information is more readily available to a broader group of people. There’s better dialogue too, and more questions are asked and answered. It’s a far more collaborative approach. “ With market uncertainty we can’t rest on our laurels. We have to go out and make sure we do everything that we can. It’s forced us to look at what processes we have, which will help us in the future.”
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
How confident are you that the marketing team will achieve this target?
26%
10 18%
9
24%
8
6%
7 6
14%
5
8%
4
0%
3
0%
2
0%
1
2%
0
2%
10
Sales outlook
How do you rate your company’s sales effort and results?
Overall satisfaction with sales efforts and results was high with 58% of sales professionals awarding a rating of good to excellent. As with every story, there are two sides. On the one hand, could the high level of confidence in sales efforts simply be the ‘sales ego’ in overdrive? As defined in the Harvard Business Review, a good salesperson must have at least two basic qualities: empathy and ego drive. On the other hand, measuring of tangible data and proving ROI may be the basis of the high rating.
58%
53%
35%
38%
12% 4% Good to Excellent
According to sales
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
OK
According to marketing
Bad
Those that weren’t happy expressed several reasons for not giving a higher rating, chief among them were poor management, under-resourcing, and the increased focus on cheap solutions resulting in more competition. “ Lack of support and understanding from higher-ups of the industry and what is needed to be successful.” “ Lack of sufficiently experienced account managers and sales resources.” “ Most of the customers are usually interested in cheap solutions – solutions that are contrary to our motto ‘fit and forget.’” “ Some companies are selling products too cheaply, so that affects us.” One respondent said:
“ It has become too difficult to compete with the mega-sized national companies in the US. The buyers too often believe they are saving money using large corporations as opposed to the smaller suppliers.” Another corroborated those views on a global scale:
“ Demand is getting lesser and market competition too strong. Many only purchase as and when needed, with less items sitting as stock these days.”
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
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Bucking the trend
How well do your sales team and marketing work together?
As identified earlier in the survey, marketing respondents rated their relationship with sales favourably, and this is reciprocated by sales even more so. • 78% of sales respondents rated their relationship with marketing as good/excellent. Those that rated the relationship between their sales and marketing teams less favourably cited communication as the main reason for not giving a higher rating. One respondent commented:
78%
“ We have zero interaction with marketing. Any interaction would be an improvement.” While another said:
18%
“ We should all work as one team and there should be a better flow of information between teams.” Good/Excellent
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
OK
4% Badly
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Challenges facing Sales in 2020 Comments made by Kimberly Hegg sum up how suppliers are tackling the sales challenges they face: “ We’re still focussing on our inventory, we’re still focussing on our profitability, and we’re still focussing on our sales. “ Over the last year there has been a concerted effort to look at our business in terms of profitability and where we’re spending our time. We’re identifying customers that bring the best value and higher volume.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
“ Sales are reaching out to customers that they haven’t reached out to in a while. The market has forced their hand. There are some companies for whom we only supply a proportion of their fleet and there are some customers that have lapsed, so we’re looking to work more closely with those.” • 71% of respondents identified finding qualified leads as the biggest challenge facing sales teams. When generating leads in most organisations, the emphasis is on quality; it is this focus on quality that is often both time and resource intensive. Organisations lacking in manpower often struggle to deliver the lead quality on a consistent basis but this is where marketing typically picks up the mantle: they create the content, identify the best channels, execute campaigns and set up nurture programmes to ensure higher quality leads are generated. As identified earlier in the survey, a high percentage of sales respondents praised marketing for the lead quality they produce – they just wish the volume could be higher.
What are the two biggest challenges facing sales this year?
71%
Finding qualified leads Getting a response from prospects
70%
Spending too much time on admin tasks
56%
44%
Staying motivated
Closing deals
38%
Understanding the product and its details/features
30%
Hiring good sales people
28%
Targets are too high
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15%
Other
12%
Conversion rate too low
11%
Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
However, if the main priority for marketing this year is – as identified earlier – to retain existing customers, then in some organisations the focus of sales and the focus of marketing will be misaligned. Marketing will be hard pressed to increase the volume of leads while maintaining the quality, as well as ensuring customer retention targets are met. Getting a response from prospects follows closely behind with 70% of respondents identifying it as the second biggest challenge facing sales. This suggests that no matter how you’re communicating with prospects, the message needs to be compelling. Alongside the messaging element, the regularity of the follow-up also plays a part. One single email or phone call won’t be enough to grab attention – a series of communications is what is needed. According to Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, it takes an average of eight touches to get an initial meeting with a new prospect. Having the right content is also important, which is where marketing comes in. However, if the main priority for marketing is to retain existing customers, then in some organisations there is likely to be misalignment between what sales need from marketing and what marketing is primarily focused on. If this is the case, then it is no surprise that sales teams are highlighting that finding qualified leads is their biggest challenge.
‘Spending too much time on admin’ was the third biggest challenge that sales teams are facing this year. Time management is certainly a key requirement for succeeding in sales but, as our research confirms, salespeople are spending too much time on activities other than sales.
Can we expect to see a significant change in the way supply chain companies sell and market their products? While the general consensus remains business-as-usual, the market landscape has changed with the emphasis on what is important from a marketing perspective. Michael Gravier comments:
• A study by ClickFunnels found that, on average, nearly two-thirds (65%) of reps’ time is spent in non-revenue generating activities, leaving only 35% for functions related to selling. The fact that 56% of our respondents feel they spend too much time on admin may suggest that sales technology, specifically sales enablement apps and prospecting tools, are not as prevalent or well-used across marine to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of sales teams. Again, this reflects the ingrained, archaic way of thinking in marine that still exists in some quarters, whereby progress to adopt new methods and technologies is either slow or non-existent. COVID-19 was also listed as a major challenge despite it not having impacted Europe at the time of the survey, while others said that targeting appropriate buyers and influencers would be among their biggest challenges. Kimberly Hegg says:
“ Aspects of our business have suffered because of the pandemic. Repair and maintenance has almost stopped, while the cruise side has suffered too. Cruise was on for a record-breaking year but has been reduced to almost nothing. So, we’ve had to refocus on other aspects of the business,”
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
“ Supply chains will rebound on a global scale, albeit growth may be slow post-pandemic. During the pandemic, companies have shifted toward digital marketing. Indeed, the global services market has expanded rapidly over the past decade and is projected to grow 60% faster than trade in goods. “ Supply chain services, such as inventory management and tracking systems, blockchain services, and risk management will receive more attention, and more big companies are doing their own computer coding for algorithms and AI, while smaller companies need more outside help.”
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About ShipServ The ShipServ trading network is the most extensive, adopted and in-depth integrated online platform built for the Blue Economy. ShipServ connects professional buyers and suppliers, simply and securely, to drive business opportunities and sustainable growth. Currently, over 260 ship operators and their 10,000 vessels use the trading platform. ShipServ Trade interconnects buying and selling processes: it is simple, secure and sustainable; it is transparent through smart data processes; it is accessible for everyone, and it delivers efficiency and good, approved relationships at the same time. ShipServ Trading ensures fair and open competition rewarding all parties with sustainable development. Buyers get instant access to tens of thousands of validated suppliers and form sustainable partnerships to enhance their operation of marine assets. Standardised connections with any software system guarantee rapid serviceability. Suppliers market their products and services through the ShipServ online interface or integrate directly with the ShipServ network.
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Supplier Sales & Marketing Survey Results 2020
For more information, please visit shipserv.com