Wednesday, July 17, 2013

No Rubbernecking. Avoid the Marketing Technology Collision.

There is a constant collision happening every day in marketing. It's the collision between marketing and corporate IT.



And those constant collisions create a bottleneck for innovation, speed to market and adaptive marketing.




Today's marketing is more than just strategy and creative. It also involves technology and the utilization of technology to deliver a marketing message. It's not just about being innovative, but leveraging innovation as an early adopter or first-mover.



And that's where the tension happens.



Think about the tension points: marketing is about agility. IT is about consistency. Marketing is about innovating and taking risks. IT is about stability and mitigating risks. Marketing is about shifting and adapting. IT is about consistency and policy.



A bigger question to ask is who owns marketing innovation via technology within a company today? If you ask, many will answer the final decision lies within the IT team.



And that is where the problem lies. Marketing technology decisions should not just be made by IT, as it should be a collaborative business decision that is led and driven by the CMO.



With growth and progression comes change. And a change in the decision making process is what's needed. Today's innovative marketing campaigns should no longer be limited by current-to-outdated IT policies and procedures. And with today's technology of APIs, web services, SaaS, PaaS, and open-source social, web and ecommerce platforms, they no longer have to be.



I've worked alongside some amazing IT teams over the years and found the common factor each team had was the ability to adapt their policies and procedures to implement and support new marketing innovations and technologies. Rather than just providing marketing teams and external agency/development partners with a list of functional requirements, they instead partnered with the marketing teams to help provide immediate solutions.



It's no coincidence these companies have become leaders in the use of marketing technology and have increased market share in their given categories.



But not all companies have this advantage. And marketers have to understand their culpability by advancing their expertise in understanding technology. Develop a passion for understanding software development. Understand how to lead, drive and push the IT group when it comes to marketing technology and innovation. And understand how technical platform decisions affect not just their marketing business, but their overall business when it comes to omni-channel revenue, ROI and a multi-device consumer experience.



Marketing technology can no longer be a decision made by a separate team within the organization. Marketing technology now has a direct impact on the success of your marketing programs, your consumer experience, and your brand itself.



from .



This is a cross-post from .



is the principal of , a digital collaboration service that partners with marketing agencies and companies to lead them in the digital marketing space by unifying strategy, creative and technology together. Connect with him: or Twitter .
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