What Sales REALLY needs from Marketing in 2025
Introduction
The rules of B2B sales and marketing are being rewritten.
After decades of focus on marketing qualified leads (MQLs), pipeline reports, and traditional success metrics, sales teams find themselves navigating a fundamentally altered landscape: complex buying groups that spend just 17% of their time engaging with vendors, and make 69% of their journey before any sales contact.
Our research, drawing from in-depth interviews with 14 senior sales leaders and sales directors across major B2B organisations, reveals a clear message - what sales needs from marketing has changed dramatically. These leaders, managing everything from global enterprise sales to targeted regional teams, share a common perspective: traditional marketing support must evolve to match today's buying behaviours.
The data tells a compelling story.
Sales teams leveraging AI-driven insights are 12-15 times more likely to secure meetings with the right accounts.
And while buyers often complete most of their journey before reaching out, 84% will purchase from the first vendor they engage.
Winning that engagement takes more than speed - it requires precision, relevance, and a more sophisticated approach to how marketing supports sales.
Key challenges emerging from our research include:
Supporting sales conversations across buying groups of 10-13 stakeholders
Moving beyond basic lead scoring to predictive account intelligence
Delivering personalisation at scale across multiple decision-makers
Leveraging AI and intent data effectively
Providing content that resonates with specific stakeholders
Establishing true revenue-focused alignment between sales and marketing
This Market View publication brings together insights from sales leaders representing some of the world's most innovative B2B organisations. Their experiences, combined with our survey data, provide a roadmap for transforming marketing support to match the needs of modern sales teams.
As you explore how to enhance your sales and marketing partnership, we hope these insights provide both validation and fresh perspectives on achieving success in today's complex B2B landscape.
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.