For me, the big innovation of 2012 in B2B Marketing isn’t going to be about technology or channels or techniques: it’ll be about revenue.

I’m convinced that 2012 will be the last chance for many B2B marketers in large organisations to take more accountability for revenue (and so break out of being a dispensible ’support function’).

I don’t mean revenue in the sense of ‘we ran a lead gen campaign and it generated 100 qualified leads’ (or even ‘we think the CRM system shows that a couple of the leads converted’). I mean revenue in terms of driving an understanding of the marketplace, planning where opportunities will come from, owning the long-term conversation and conversion of the audience through to sales and proving in detail the outcome – ideally past revenue through to contribution. And, on the customer side, driving the plan of how new/expanded propositions will be taken to the existing customer base.

The economic uncertainty and shake-ups happening in lots of big B2B firms have created this opportunity. If we can avoid being overly distracted by the abundance of new channels and techniques available, there’s a chance that we’ll be able to stake a claim for a place at the top table. When marketers start taking this seriously, the fabled ’sales and marketing alignment’ will just happen.

When the CEO asks ‘what did marketing do for me in 2012?’, the answer could either be ‘we sourced 30% of pipeline and 25% of prospect revenue, grew customer profitabiliy by 15% and established measurable awareness for our top new propositions’ or ‘we implemented marketing automation and social media monitoring, grew our followers by 1000% and delivered 1,500 qualified sales leads (we’re just not sure what sales did with them…)’. I know which answer I’d rather give.