Key Takeaways:
- Skipping research leads to wasted spend that compounds into six figures over time.
- Every dollar not grounded in data risks multiplying your marketing inefficiency.
- Research stops the leak by aligning spend with what actually drives ROI.
- Over five years, the $60K-per-year waste becomes a $300,000 mistake.
The Cost No One Puts on the P&L
“Based on my experience over the last two decades, most people reading this book are wasting 60 percent of their marketing investment a year.”
— The B2B Marketing Revolution®
It’s a number that makes most CEOs flinch. If your company spends $100,000 a year on marketing, $60,000 of it is being wasted. Every single year.
Not stolen. Not misallocated. Wasted, through misguided targeting, hollow messaging, and channels that don’t convert.
That’s a $300,000 loss over five years, and the only reason it doesn’t show up on your balance sheet is because you’re calling it “marketing.”
In The B2B Marketing Revolution®, Battle 3 of the 12 Battles™ Framework rips this truth wide open: most companies don’t have a spending problem; they have a research problem. They’re investing in execution without first investing in intelligence.
It’s like marching into battle without reconnaissance. You wouldn’t send soldiers into unknown territory, but too many leaders send their marketing dollars there every day.
Why 60% of Your Marketing Budget Is Being Wasted
If you’re not starting with data, you’re starting with guesswork. And guesswork is expensive. The leak shows up everywhere:
- Misaligned Messaging — You’re talking about what you think matters instead of what actually drives purchase decisions.
- Channel Confusion — You’re over-investing in the platforms you personally use instead of where your buyers actually are.
- Audience Mismatch — You’re targeting the wrong decision-makers or missing the hidden influencers.
- Creative Without Context — Clever campaigns flop because they’re not grounded in research.
Each individual miss feels manageable: a campaign that underperforms here, an event that falls flat there. But stack them together over a year, and 60% of your spend has evaporated into the ether.
And because most of those dollars vanish quietly, the waste rarely triggers alarm bells. Marketing teams work harder, not smarter, layering more tactics on top of bad assumptions.
The result? An expensive illusion of productivity.
The Hidden Math of Marketing Waste
Let’s do the math.
If your company invests $250,000 a year in marketing that 60% leak translates to $150,000 down the drain annually. Over five years, that’s $750,000. Three-quarters of a million dollars burned on misfires that research could have prevented.
And the cost doesn’t end there. Those wasted dollars represent lost opportunity: the market share, leads, and revenue you could have generated if that money had been deployed effectively.
That’s why The B2B Marketing Revolution® frames market research not as a cost center but as a profit lever.
“You can’t afford to skip market research. It’s the primary driver of your ability to drive strong, predictable marketing outcomes.”
— The B2B Marketing Revolution®
Skipping research doesn’t save money. It guarantees waste.
How Research Stops the Bleed
1.It Shows You Where the Money Actually Works
When you understand your buyer’s pain points, motivations, and decision triggers, every marketing dollar becomes a targeted investment instead of a gamble.
That’s how you transform “spend” into “strategy.”
2.It Exposes Assumptions You Didn’t Know You Had
Maybe your team believes your customers buy for price, but interviews reveal it’s reliability. Maybe you think CFOs are your primary buyers, but surveys show COOs drive the purchase.
Research unmasks those blind spots before they become $10,000 misfires.
3.It Transforms Hope Marketing into Predictable ROI
They can predict with precision how many leads each dollar will produce. They can scale confidently because they understand what works and why.
Research is the difference between hoping for outcomes and engineering them.
Real-World Proof: The Company That Plugged Its Leak
Before partnering with RedRover, a $40-million manufacturing firm called LegacyTech had a problem that looked familiar: solid product, loyal clients, stagnant growth. Their marketing budget was healthy, but their results weren’t.
Through a comprehensive research initiative that included customer interviews, competitive analysis, and transaction mapping, RedRover uncovered a critical truth: their buyers weren’t connecting with their message.
LegacyTech’s marketing centered on technical specs, but buyers cared about reliability and post-sale support. That disconnect was costing them conversions.
Armed with new insights, the company repositioned its brand, rebuilt its digital content around verified customer pain points, and doubled down on the channels research proved most profitable.
The result:
- Inbound leads surged 50%.
- 95% of new business came inbound.
- Annual revenue exceeded projections for the first time in five years.
Their investment in research cost less than one quarter of their previous annual waste.
That’s what happens when you stop guessing and start measuring.
The Company That Let $100K Slip Away
Now meet Panorama Window & Door, a regional manufacturer with aggressive growth goals and an even more aggressive timeline. Their CEO insisted, “We already know our customers,” and cut research to save time.
They poured six figures into new campaigns targeting what they thought was their ideal audience. Within months, it became clear they’d missed the mark entirely.
Their ad creative spoke to residential builders, but their most profitable buyers were actually commercial contractors. Leads dried up. Sales cycles stretched.
The fallout?
- $75K–$100K in wasted spend.
- A seven-month delay in hitting growth targets.
- A demoralized team scrambling to fix the unfixable.
The irony? The research they skipped would’ve cost $30,000 and prevented all of it.
As The B2B Marketing Revolution® warns, “Skipping research to move fast is like cutting your brakes to save weight.” You might get there faster… until you don’t.
How to Stop the $60K Leak in Your Company
Every B2B leader wants marketing that performs predictability. But you can’t get predictable results from unpredictable inputs.
Here’s how to stop the drain and start funding growth instead:
- Quantify the Waste. Look at your last 12 months of marketing spend. How much of it can you directly tie to measurable ROI? The rest is your leak.
- Budget for Research First. Dedicate 10–15% of your annual marketing spend to research before execution. It’s the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy.
- Blend Qualitative and Quantitative. Pair interviews and surveys with hard performance data for a complete picture.
- Challenge Every Assumption. If you can’t prove it with data, test it before investing behind it.
- Track MROI Like a CFO. Hold marketing accountable to the same financial standards as any other investment.
When research drives the strategy, every subsequent decision from creative to channel to spend gets sharper.
The ROI of Doing It Right
Research-driven marketing produces scalable, repeatable, and predictable outcomes, the trifecta every CEO wants but few achieve.
The payoff:
- Lower customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Higher lead-to-close conversion rates
- Stronger forecasting accuracy
- Sustainable growth momentum
In other words: no more $60,000 leaks.
Start a Revolution: Plug the $60,000 Leak
Battle 3 of the 12 Battles™ Framework challenges every B2B leader to stop treating research as optional. Because until you confront that $60,000 leak, every dollar you spend is at risk of slipping through the cracks.
The revolution starts with clarity: data that tells you where to aim, how to speak, and what to stop wasting money on.
If you’re serious about predictable growth, it’s time to fund the part of your marketing that pays for itself.
Stop the leak. Start your revolution.
By Lori Turner-Wilson, RedRover CEO/Founder, Internationally Best-Selling Author of The B2B Marketing Revolution™: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes
Taking Action
The above insights are part of hundreds of best practices found in The B2B Marketing Revolution™: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes — the playbook that middle-market B2B CEOs and marketing leaders lean on to scale. Backed by a groundbreaking research study, this book offers time-tested best practices, indispensable KPIs for benchmarking, insights on where your dollars are best spent, and, above all, the proven 12 Battles™ Framework for generating guaranteed marketing outcomes. The B2B Marketing Revolution™ is a battle-hardened approach to becoming an outcomes-first leader who’s ready to shake up the status quo, invest in high-payoff market research and optimization, and — yes — even torch what’s not serving your endgame. Download more than 50 templates, scripts, and tools from the book on the Battle Reader Hub.
If you’d like to talk about how to build a marketing engine that delivers predictable results — whether you want to build it yourself or tag in our team to lead the way — we’d be delighted to help you get started.
