There’s an understandable fascination with the rat-a-tat deal-making in marketing technology circles, but transformation of the marketing discipline will only come as Fortune 1000 CMOs embrace these changes. Extend your time horizon a few years, and this industry’s evolution is fundamentally a head game.
For more on this, AdExchanger asked senior execs from two leading “marketing cloud” companies appearing at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview 2015 conference this week to answer one question:
“What are the one or two biggest barriers to evolution in the marketing technology arena, and what should CMOs do to overcome them?”
Scroll down for their answers.
Michael Lazerow, CSO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce
“Some businesses pivot to shareholders. Others pivot to partners. Companies that succeed in this new age of social, mobile, cloud and data must pivot to their customers.
New technology allows brands unprecedented access to customer data, but there still remains the challenge of, ‘How do I take this data and apply it in a meaningful way to my customer’s journey?’ That means integration and collaboration across business units, which is not a simple thing for large companies. Organizations should partner with platforms that can help them create personalized, cross-channel customer journeys.
What does this mean? It means this is no longer just about marketing – it’s about relevant content, personalized customer service and the 1:1 journeys customers are taking with your brand across channels. “
If CMOs take the time to leverage new technology in a way that resonates with their customers, they’ll stand out amongst the noise. It’s not really marketing – it’s about the customer journey.”
Nick Bell, senior director, Oracle Marketing Cloud:
“I believe one of the biggest barriers is mindset. There are still a great number of marketing leaders who are stuck in the past – literally. The technology to provide what consumers want – a seamless and personalized experience – is available right now. But with marketers facing a perfect storm of complexity that is being driven by enormous change on three levels – technology, business and society – they often don’t know where to start. And when you combine the mindset and complexity, you have a very significant barrier indeed. In fact, when we recently examined the level of marketing maturity, we were surprised to see that only 11 percent of marketers fit into the ‘modern marketing’ category.
CMOs can overcome these barriers by working closely with the CIO to eliminate the overwhelming complexity and dysfunctional processes that often limit customer communications to one-off transactional messages.
That alone is not enough, though. The CIO is not a marketing expert, and to guide them in this brave new world, the CMO needs a technology partner that can act as a ‘foreman.’ Someone that understands marketing and how to use technology to pinpoint the unknown potential customer and move them all the way through the customer journey to brand advocate. By simplifying processes and breaking down silos, marketers can create a true digital dialogue with their audience that not only enhances the customer experience, but also helps marketing demonstrate a tangible impact on revenues.”
