5 Reasons Why Marketing Must Fundamentally Change

Senior mar­keters believe reform is nec­es­sary to sup­port the inte­grat­ed, omnichan­nel activ­i­ties required to under­stand today’s com­plex con­sumers.

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 1 comment

New research from Mar­ke­to has revealed how senior mar­keters believe that the mar­ket­ing func­tion of busi­ness­es needs to fun­da­men­tal­ly change in the next few years. The reform is nec­es­sary to sup­port the inte­grat­ed, omnichan­nel activ­i­ty mar­keters require to under­stand and pro­vide for the com­plex ways con­sumers nav­i­gate dig­i­tal media. In addi­tion, change is need­ed to facil­i­tate the growth of mar­ket­ing depart­ments as a rev­enue gen­er­at­ing chan­nel, one that is tak­ing both the lead and over­all own­er­ship of man­ag­ing con­sumer jour­neys.


Senior mar­keters believe mar­ket­ing depart­ments need to under­go fun­da­men­tal change, accord­ing to research from The Econ­o­mist’s Intel­li­gence Unit, on behalf of Mar­ke­to. The Rise of The Mar­keter, Dri­ving Engage­ment, Expe­ri­ence and Rev­enue, sur­veyed 478 CMOs and senior mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als, gaug­ing their thoughts and opin­ions on the chal­lenges fac­ing brands and mar­keters.

How can mar­keters pre­pare for the chal­lenges ahead and meet the demands for bet­ter cus­tomer expe­ri­ences?

Why Is Change Needed?

Mar­ket­ing is evolv­ing from a depart­ment that costs mon­ey to one that is a proven source of rev­enue. But before we get there, mar­ket­ing depart­ments need to adapt their fun­da­men­tal busi­ness mod­els, struc­tures, and modes of oper­a­tions to match grow­ing cus­tomer expec­ta­tions and demands, accord­ing to the report.

Let’s look at five key trends chang­ing the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments work.

1. Managing The Customer Experience

More than one-third of respon­dents to Mar­ke­to’s sur­vey agreed that they were respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence today. This fig­ure is expect­ed to increase to around 75 per­cent in the next three to five years, as mar­ket­ing depart­ments take own­er­ship of the over­all cus­tomer expe­ri­ence.

With the diverse range of chan­nels that make up the con­sumer expe­ri­ence, mar­keters will man­age the inte­gra­tion and syn­er­gy between those chan­nels. As Jamie Moldaf­sky, CMO at Wells Far­go, explained:

There is more of a need for the artic­u­la­tion of an inte­grat­ed, holis­tic approach than before, sim­ply because there are myr­i­ad chan­nels and con­tact points.”

The wide scope of the con­sumer jour­ney means that a diverse range of inter­con­nect­ed skills and teams capa­ble of deliv­er­ing on many fronts are nec­es­sary – increas­ing­ly this respon­si­bil­i­ty is being tak­en on by mar­ket­ing depart­ments.

2. Driving Engagement

Empow­er­ing great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence is seen by mar­keters to be a key dri­ver for engage­ment, which is itself increas­ing­ly being regard­ed by mar­keters as a cru­cial touch­point to build­ing loy­al­ty and advo­ca­cy in con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys.

Engage­ment is viewed as a strong dri­ver for sales and repeat sales:

  • 63 per­cent of mar­keters sur­veyed say that engage­ment is man­i­fest­ed in “cus­tomer renewals, reten­tion and repeat pur­chas­es.”
  • Over­all 78 per­cent of mar­keters see engage­ment as occur­ring in the mid­dle stages of the fun­nel, with 15 per­cent of those defin­ing engage­ment as that which has an impact on rev­enue.

The goal is to increase the depth and rich­ness of engage­ment and inter­ac­tions, help­ing nur­ture con­sumers as the nav­i­gate the pur­chase jour­ney, and ulti­mate­ly to dri­ve rev­enues.

3. Increasing Revenues

The report high­lights that all too often, mar­ket­ing is seen as a cost cen­ter, rather than an arm of the busi­ness that dri­ves rev­enues. Over­all, respon­dents said that in three to five years, approx­i­mate­ly four out of five com­pa­nies will con­sid­er mar­ket­ing to be less of a cost cen­ter and more of a rev­enue dri­ver.

marketing-change2

At the moment mar­keters agree that their depart­ments are being viewed as both cost cen­ters and rev­enue dri­vers, with 69 per­cent and 68 per­cent, respec­tive­ly, agree­ing they were viewed in that way by their com­pa­nies. This sen­ti­ment, how­ev­er, is expect­ed to move toward the lat­ter opin­ion in com­ing years.

Today mar­keters are increas­ing­ly able to show how they are dri­ving rev­enue by mea­sur­ing the impact of their influ­ence. Per­haps the best exam­ple of this is lead gen­er­a­tion, and the abil­i­ty to track oppor­tu­ni­ties as they move from unqual­i­fied, to mar­ket­ing-qual­i­fied, to sales-qual­i­fied, to a close.

Mar­ket­ing depart­ments are increas­ing­ly tak­ing own­er­ship of entire cus­tomer jour­neys. The capa­bil­i­ty to mea­sure that impact is becom­ing much more attrib­ut­able. As Mayur Gup­ta, Glob­al Head, Mar­ket­ing Tech­nol­o­gy & Inno­va­tion at Kim­ber­ly-Clark sum­ma­rized:

The CMO has to dri­ve an expe­ri­ence that can win that con­sumer at any point of the fun­nel, because there real­ly is no fun­nel any­more. The con­sumer is at the cen­ter. Mar­ket­ing has to be able to inspire the consumer’s behav­ior every­where in the consumer’s world.”

For that rea­son, mar­ket­ing depart­ments are begin­ning to gain recog­ni­tion for the val­ue that they bring to a busi­ness­es’ rev­enue chan­nels. The change will mean that new skills are nec­es­sary in the indus­try to mea­sure and track the effi­ca­cy of mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

4. Addressing The Skills Shortage

Espe­cial­ly among those mar­keters who con­sid­ered change to be urgent, 39 per­cent want new to recruit employ­ees with new skills able to cater to con­sumer demand for dig­i­tal engage­ment, and in the field of mar­ket­ing oper­a­tions and tech­nol­o­gy.

marketing-skills

  • 32 per­cent of mar­keters want to recruit those skilled in the areas of demand gen­er­a­tion and data analy­sis.
  • 27 per­cent are seek­ing recruits skilled in cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and engage­ment.
  • In the cre­ative skills of graph­ic design and arts, and adver­tis­ing and brand­ing, 16 per­cent and 26 per­cent of mar­keters, respec­tive­ly, report a skills short­age in these area.

The skills short­age is a huge chal­lenge in the dig­i­tal indus­try. Mar­ket­ing depart­ments are already feel­ing the need to recruit tech­ni­cal­ly- and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly-mind­ed pro­fes­sion­als to meet an increas­ing­ly data-dri­ven world.

5. Investing Big In Digital And Data

When it comes to invest­ment and bud­gets, dig­i­tal and data oper­a­tions will dom­i­nate bud­gets in the next three to five years.

marketing-investment

The three great­est chan­nels that mar­keters intend to spend their bud­gets on will be social, mobile, and email mar­ket­ing, with ana­lyt­ics being used to tie togeth­er and inte­grate brand efforts on these chan­nels.

The sheer impact of the way dig­i­tal chan­nels have tak­en prece­dence in con­sumer lives means that mar­ket­ing bud­gets and depart­ments need to be restruc­tured in a way that is sup­ports strong dig­i­tal per­for­mance.

Verdict: Marketing Departments Need To Fundamentally Change

When asked whether to score, on a scale of 1 (strong­ly dis­agree) to 10 (strong­ly agree), the state­ment that “mar­keters need to change their approach over the next three to five years to bet­ter sup­port the busi­ness” an over­whelm­ing pro­por­tion of senior mar­keters indi­cat­ed that they were strong­ly in favor of a sig­nif­i­cant change in approach.

marketing-change

In addi­tion:

  • 81 per­cent agreed with the state­ment “we need to change the struc­ture and design of our mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tion to meet the needs of our busi­ness over the next three to five years.”
  • 19 per­cent of respon­dents con­sid­er that there is no need to change the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments are func­tion­ing, or that the “way we are oper­at­ing now is the same as the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments will oper­ate in the future.”
  • 52 per­cent of respon­dents believe in grad­ual, or incre­men­tal change, mak­ing small opti­miza­tions and mea­sur­ing the effi­ca­cy of new changes.
  • 29 per­cent of respon­dents believe that mar­ket­ing depart­ments must change their approach to bet­ter sup­port their busi­ness­es.

This final group of mar­keters believe in urgent change and high­light a need for mar­keters to keep up with tech­nol­o­gy and data-dri­ven com­peti­tors. This group is par­tic­u­lar­ly keen on estab­lish­ing a new prece­dent in which mar­ket­ing depart­ments are proven to dri­ve rev­enue, rather than being seen as a busi­ness expense.

Change Means Opportunity

Over­all, the results of the sur­vey show that mar­keters are striv­ing to catch up with the high expec­ta­tions of dig­i­tal-savvy con­sumers. More than any­thing, mar­ket­ing depart­ments have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to change and improve their efforts. As the gap between what is expect­ed and what mar­keters are capa­ble of deliv­er­ing decrease, con­sumers – and the rep­u­ta­tion of mar­ket­ing as a busi­ness func­tion – will ben­e­fit.

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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