Automation and data management technologies top marketing teams technology wishlist of technology driven efficiencies.
A new Oracle survey of Australian marketers found that 98 per cent see that marketing today as highly complex and expect increased interrelationship between marketing and IT functions.
Marketing has exploded in its level of complexity, measurement, fragmentation of channels, messaging and attribution. Almost all marketers surveyed are looking to implement marketing automation or data management in the next 12 months as they come to terms with this increasingly complex marketing landscape.
The Oracle Marketing Cloud report was based on a survey of 96 marketers attending the recent ADMA Global Forum in Sydney and found 91 per cent are looking to implement either marketing automation or data management solutions into their marketing strategy.
In addition, 52 per cent are leveraging cloud technology to support the marketing function and 30 per cent plan to implement cloud technology by 2017.
The report also illustrated the rising stature of marketing inside organisations today and found 44 per cent of marketers had seen their teams increase in the past 12 months. Just over half of respondents also anticipate their marketing budgets to rise over the coming year.
Among the most popular new technology tools marketers plan to implement to assist them are social solutions (62 per cent) and cross-channel marketing (54 per cent).
Across the board, 98 per cent of respondents saw the current role of marketing as highly complex, and expected the interdependency between technology and marketing to increase in the next three years. Eighty-three per cent described the role of marketing as challenging, and 15 per cent labelled it ‘rocket science’.
The latest CMO Council State of Marketing report also found the majority of CMOs to be confident in both marketing’s position as a revenue driver as well as their own c-level position. In that survey, 55 per cent were found to be planning headcount additions and 54 per cent expected budget increases.
The biggest challenge
The biggest challenge then is not that you need to invest in this area but to ensure that you are selecting the right technology to get the best ROI for your business.
A quick look over the popular Luma Landscape maps will show you that your selection is getting bigger not smaller – despite the large scale consolidation happening via Adobe, SalesForce, IBM and Oracle as they build out a suite of ‘stack’ of marketing technology to automate and track your customers and their behaviour’s. The technology wishlist is getting more complicated not easier.
There is no one best solution in market and ensuring that you have carefully considered the right technology for the right need should be a carefully considered process.
We have seen a number of rushed decisions that are hurting companies well after the technology was a leading platform.
The second challenge
The other challenge that you have to consider is the interrelationship between the technologies.
Each of the technologies has a different view on tracking, attribution, look back periods and data schema (design). There are systems that allow the data to flow between the technologies but in a large sense this is limited to the full range of data that is stored.
Conclusion
Technology is important. Cost savings, efficiencies and performance can all be dramatically improved by the right investment in the right technology to fit your business needs and existing technology solutions. So before you add a number of new investments on the marketing technology wishlist make sure you engage in a proper RFP and ensure that the investment is correct for business, now and into the near future.
Lighthouse8 – Technology Practice
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