Marketing Week conducted a survey recently, asking B2B marketers about their challenges, how they are adapting and where they still feel uncertain about their performance.

Looking at the results, it's clear to see that the three biggest challenges of marketers are linked. In order they were:

1. Performance measurement
2. Internal alignment
3. Business strategy

A CEO I once had the privilege of working for had the solution to all of these. "It's all about the customer, focus on engaging with the ones that count - do that well and nobody will be questioning the performance of marketing."

How many of your marketing efforts are specifically targeted at key strategic accounts? Events, advertising and content can be targeted at people rather than personas.

The performance of these is easy enough to measure and gain buy-in for, but too often important accounts are overlooked as we try to fill the top of the funnel and hit opportunity KPI's.

Perhaps the way to address these challenges is a focus on quality over quantity and a hard look at what we are trying to do as marketers. Are we the business leaders and the engine for growth or does Marketing simply book meetings for Sales?