Pardot Study Offers New Insight Into B-to-B Buying Habits, Offers Practical Recommendations to Transform Lead Generation through Marketing Automation

ATLANTA (Oct. 29, 2013) - New research from global marketing automation leader Pardot, a salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) company, found more than three quarters of businesses expect B-to-B companies to provide personalized digital marketing throughout the buying process.

Based on a survey of more than 400 B-to-B buyers, the Pardot State of Demand Generation report found that 76 percent of B-to-B customers prefer to receive content unique to their stage in the buying process, setting a new requirement for data-driven marketing automation for lead generation. 

"B-to-B buyers have an unprecedented appetite for highly personalized, 1-to-1 digital experience at every step in the purchase process," said Adam Blitzer, vice president and general manager, Pardot. "Now is the time for marketers to transform their lead generation programs to reflect the new reality and connect with their customers in entirely new ways to drive new leads and accelerate the selling process."

Key findings from business-to-business buyers featured in the study include:

  • 89 percent stated that potential purchase cost does affect the time and effort they are willing to invest in research;
  • 72 percent of buying decisions begin on Google;
  • 70 percent prefer whitepapers, case studies and eBooks under five pages; and
  • 70 percent conduct research an additional two to three times before reaching out to vendors to set up demonstrations.

"Modern best practices in demand generation will revolve around filling the sales funnel and understanding where prospects are in the customer lifecycle," said Mark Woollen, vice president of product marketing, of Sales Cloud, salesforce.com. "By leveraging marketing automation to deliver relevant content, B-to-B companies can accelerate the sales cycle by solving core sales challenges."

To download the Pardot State of Demand Generation Study, click here. 

The State of Demand Generation study follows Gartner, Inc. naming Pardot a "visionary" in lead management in the "Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management" report. The report recognized Pardot for market for completeness of vision and ability to execute. To download the "Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management" report, visit http://www.exacttarget.com/leadmgmtvisionary.

About Pardot
Pardot, a salesforce.com company, is a leading business-to-business marketing automation software provider located in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 2007, the company offers a software-as-a-service marketing automation application for marketing and sales departments to create, deploy, and manage online marketing campaigns that increase revenue and maximize efficiency. Pardot empowers marketers with lead nurturing, lead scoring, and ROI reporting to generate and qualify sales leads, shorten sales cycles, and demonstrate marketing accountability.http://www.pardot.com/.


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