Customer expectations are changing faster than marketers’ abilities to keep up with them. And while tools are evolving to better manage customer experiences, recent research shows the skills and organizational processes needed at most companies are still lacking.
A study recently conducted by Forrester Research on behalf of Oracle indicates the adoption of modern marketing capabilities is lagging. According to Andrea Ward, vice president of marketing for Oracle Marketing Cloud, “Despite a clear and measurable impact on revenue, many businesses have yet to adopt modern marketing best practices. In fact, only 11 percent of respondents were considered “Modern Marketers,” and most respondents were either identified as “Experienced” marketers (33 percent), “Discovery” marketers (41 percent) or “Novice” marketers (15 percent).”
“Modern” marketers as defined in the study do these things:
- Employ intelligent targeting based on real-time feedback data and behavioral analysis in addition to preferences and readiness criteria
- Use data to develop personas for every major audience type, and use these to guide marketing strategy, messaging and execution
- Distribute thought leadership, build a two-way dialogue about challenges and give customers exactly what they need at each stage of the purchase journey
- Use scoring, nurturing, behavioral triggers and recycling not only across the sales pipeline but after sales to increase loyalty
- Have current and real-time accessible customer data; use predictive models and statistical techniques to create models and drive business opportunities
- Leverage attribution measurement to understand the impact of all channels
- Have a standard, fully integrated cross-channel marketing automation platform
Another study released by the ANA and McKinsey reinforces that further transformation is required by marketers to reach their full potential. The report authors David Edelman and Jason Heller identify five “blind spots” that companies must address:
- A fractured customer experience: “The lack of responsibility and accountability for the entire customer journey will continue to inhibit marketers’ efforts to develop seamless and consistent experiences across all touch points. Even within marketing, silos inhibit coordination, resulting in less-than-ideal customer experiences.”
- Content primacy without strategy and operations: “While marketers have been increasing investment in content creation and distribution, the lack of true “content supply-chain management” — involving the agencies, production houses, functions and media companies that create and distribute a brand’s content across all channels — will undermine efforts to shape the customer experience positively."
- Disconnects between leadership and the front lines: “While marketers overwhelmingly agree on the importance of test-and-learn methods as a response to disruptive forces, they aren’t putting in place the agile processes to make experimentation a core competency.”
- Hiring talent, but not managing it: “Nearly nine in 10 respondents say training and skills development play an important role in the response to disruptions, underscoring the need to upgrade the skills of existing marketers while ensuring that newly hired talent continues to develop as the disruptions continue."
- Decisions without data: "Most marketers acknowledge that data and analytics are the key to addressing a more complex landscape; 96% said the ability to make data-informed decisions is their most needed capability to respond effectively to disruptions. However, about a quarter of companies are not using data to make decisions, and almost half say they still don’t have the right analytics in place to measure the effectiveness of marketing investments."
Marketing cloud vendors are beginning to help close the skills gaps that exist in most marketing organizations today. IBM recently announced a partnership with Wharton Business School to develop a CMO program. According to Kevin Bishop, general manager of IBM Experience One, “We see in our research that the gap between the best and the rest is widening. All of us in this space recognize there’s a skills gap. But actually some of that skills gap is at the top. What we’re seeking to do with Wharton is put in place a program for CMOs where they can learn from the best practices of each other, where they can look at future challenges together and discuss how they would tackle those, with coaching from Wharton and its academic staff, and with insights from IBM and our experience of data as the CMO role evolves.”
Marketo recently announced the formation of the Marketo Institute. According to Jon Miller, company co-founder and now executive director of the institute, “What we’re launching is a first-of-its-kind marketing research group focused on providing global marketing leaders with fact-based insights and data-driven best practices for digital marketing. These insights are not derived from surveys but rather from Marketo’s seven-year history of running more than 12 million digital campaigns on behalf of more than 3,500 customers in 36 countries across 20 different industries. It will provide brands with insights derived from quantitative analysis of digital marketing campaigns.”
But is this type of skills development enough? Probably not thinks Mayur Gupta, chief marketing technology officer for Kimberly-Clark. “There is an infatuation right now about marketing technology and everyone’s talking about marketing and technology. But with what you’ve been talking about in terms of the future of marketing, there’s a broader need that goes beyond just marketing and technology. We’re living in an era of convergence that goes across marketing, tech, finance, sales and other elements. The talent gap that exists is not just with marketing technologies. But those unicorns [marketing technologists] have to understand elements of storyscaping. They need to understand data. They need to understand P&L. They need to understand finance. They need to understand sales.”
