Marketing is in a whirlwind of technological innovation. It's thrilling, inspiring, and a little dizzying.
Last year, I made the first version of a marketing technology landscape infographic to try to glimpse the "big picture" of this broad field. I'm pleased to now share with you the all-new 2012 version of this supergraphic above (click...
Marketo is one of the leading providers of marketing automation software.
"No IT" was one of their early selling points, and I remember thinking at the time that represented a major inflection point in marketing's relationship with technology.
So I was excited to have the opportunity to interview Jon Miller, their VP of Marketing Content and Strategy, on the impact they've seen technology have in the marketing department over the past 6 years.
Here's his perspective:
Marketo was one of the first marketing technology companies to emphasize "no IT" as one of its value propositions to marketers. What does the relationship between IT and marketing look like these days?
In the past,...
Nobody likes to see their idea lose. Everybody wants straight A's. Look good for the boss. It's the Lake Wobegon effect: all the children are above average. (If you don't appreciate that joke, take this pop quiz.)
So at some level it's not surprising that survey data of Fortune 1,000 marketers from the CEB Marketing Leadership Council shows that only 50% of marketers agree or strongly agree with the statement: "My team accepts that some experiments must fail in order for us to...
Last week, I gently ribbed the Marketing Leadership Council of the CEB over their HBR post, Marketers Flunk the Big Data Test. I felt the statistics they were sharing about marketers not being very statistically savvy were themselves a little questionable.
In response, one of the authors of that post, Anna Bird, graciously reached out to me to address some of my concerns.
The HBR post stated that when they asked Fortune 1000 marketers five "basic to intermediate" statistics questions, 44% of those marketers got four or more answers wrong. Only 6% of the marketers they interviewed got all five right. The implication was that marketers lacked statistical aptitude...
Well, not hot like the Real Housewives of Madison Avenue. But in their article — The hot new CxO: Chief Marketing Technology Officer? — they acknowledge "a new role that's a cross between the traditional chief marketing officer and chief technology officer." And it's become a hot topic.
"CMTOs are using significant technology and analytical expertise to help companies make sense of and exploit vast amounts of customer and market data from sources as diverse as Facebook, the company blog, customer databases, sales information, and trending tweets on Twitter."
Most of their case for CMTO hotness is presented in an infographic, which I've included below (click on it to go to their original):
The Corporate Executive Board had an eye-catching post on the HBR blog recently, Marketers Flunk the Big Data Test. They begin:
The big-data explosion is driving a shift away from gut-based decision making. Marketing in particular is feeling the pressure to embrace new data-driven customer intelligence capabilities. No wonder a strong appetite for data is one of the most sought-after qualities in new marketers. And yet, a recent CEB study of nearly 800 marketers at Fortune 1000 companies found the vast majority of marketers still rely too much on intuition — while the few who do use data aggressively for the most part do it badly.
We'll save the debate about big data vs. small data...
"The problem is very rarely data, or that we don't have access to data." So said Avinash Kaushik, web analytics and marketing data guru, in his keynote at this week's SES conference in San Francisco.
In Avinash's view, business optimization in the digital world requires mastering three things:
"Behind all...
Hackathons. Prototyping. Beta testing.
Sounds like a typical day in Silicon Valley software, right? Not this time. This is the language of Madison Avenue in the 21st century. Or at least it will be, if Google's new Agile Creativity initiative takes root.
In collaboration with a number of agency visionaries, Google has produced a compelling half-manifesto/half-tipsheet with recommendations for how agencies can reinvent themselves as "agile" businesses.
It merges the DNA of Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue into some fascinating hybrid concepts. Instead of a "minimal viable product", there's a "minimum viable brief." Instead of "hackathons," there are "idea-thons." Beta testing...
Three separate worlds:
Well, for marketers they've been three separate worlds. Typical marketing org charts and agency/vendor boundaries sharply delineate these domains, often with electrified fences.
But to prospects and customers, there are no boundaries. It's as effortless as crossing state lines on a long road trip. There's just a natural flow between brand...
You've probably been hearing more about agile marketing lately. Over the past 6 months, there has been a blossoming Renaissance of discussions, writings, and events on the subject — a number of which I summed up in a recent Search England Land column, Have You Adopted Agile Marketing Yet?
In a nutshell, agile marketing adapts management methodologies from agile software development (and agile...
