When did you last evaluate the quality of your B2B personas and contact data? If you’re like most marketers, you know the struggle of getting the right content to the right people.

Starting in 2014, Salesforce analyzed over 15 million data points from major B2B databases like Data.com and LinkedIn. The goal? To help marketers understand and improve the accuracy of their targeting.

I spoke with Mathew Sweezey, Principal of Marketing Insights at Salesforce, about his research and insights from the report, B2B Personas: Targeting Audiences. Here’s what he had to say.

Brian: Mathew, can you tell us a little about your background?

Mathew Sweezey: Sure! I was one of the early employees at Pardot, which later became part of Salesforce. I’ve been in the thick of B2B marketing, writing the book Marketing Automation for Dummies and sharing insights as the Principal of Marketing Insight at Salesforce.

Brian: What inspired you to dig into this data?

Mathew Sweezey: As marketers, we often focus on simple metrics like the number of email addresses we collect. But we rarely ask the bigger question: How effective are we? We needed a way to evaluate audience data and understand its true value.

Key Takeaways:

Brian: What surprised you most during your analysis?

Mathew Sweezey: The biggest surprise was the high level of movement within organizations. People change roles frequently, which can make your database quickly outdated.

Key Insights:

Tip: Track growth and churn rates in your personas to understand how quickly your audience changes.

Brian: Your report suggests B2B marketing is undergoing a major shift. Can you elaborate?

Mathew Sweezey: Traditionally, businesses controlled both the creation and distribution of media. Today, we live in an infinite media environment where anyone can create and share content.

The New Reality:

Insight: The biggest challenge today is cutting through the noise by making content genuinely valuable.

Brian: Given what you’ve shared, should marketers change how they view email as a channel?

Mathew Sweezey: Yes! Email should be treated as just one part of a broader communication strategy. Consider social media handles, which may have a longer shelf life, as a way to keep in touch with contacts who frequently change roles.

Best Practices for Email Marketing:

Tip: Think about building relationships across multiple platforms to ensure continuity when roles or emails change.

Brian: What’s one statistic you wish more people knew?

Mathew Sweezey: Did you know the average tenure for a marketer is only 2.4 years? That means a gerbil’s lifespan is longer than the average marketing role! In fact, marketers have the highest churn rate of any profession.

Mathew’s Key Takeaways for B2B Marketers:

Connect with Mathew: