Marketing is fragmenting, breaking apart ? a profession divided ? and like a divided army, is weaker and less effective as a result.
The myriad of disciplines that the modern marketer is expected to understand, become expert in and deploy, usually with some significant investment cost, is considerable.
The marketer doesn?t stand a chance to know everything about inbound, outbound, social co-creation, lead generation, marketing automation, brand development, CRM, experiential, sales enablement, digital body language, real time data analysis? blah, blah, blah. They increasingly have to be an expert in one or the other ? losing sight of the whole marketing organization and focus as a result ? becoming tactical in one area at the cost of tactical integration and strategy.
According to recent IBM research, marketers are ?drowning in data but lacking true insights?. In the same study, 56% of CMOs reported that they are unprepared to deal with the drive towards ROI accountability. They need to demonstrate ROI to the people ? CEO, CFO ? that hold the purse strings, in order to gain budgets to develop technological processes that deliver good ROI ? a vicious circle.
But the more they jump on the next big thing, the more they promise greater ROI, technological advantage, cost reductions, faster response and sales growth etc, the more their boards expect this from them. There is already a cycle of desperation ? greater board demands leads to greater need to deliver, leads to greater desire to try the latest fad, leads to increased need to prove effectiveness and wise spend, leads to bigger promises, leads to greater board expectations.
Eventually, and we?ve already seen this, marketers forget what marketing is all about and become technologists and bean counters rather than organization and market inspirers. They become obsessed with the means to the end rather than the end in itself, and if their chosen means fail to yield rapid results, they have nowhere else to go.
The landscape described here is already having some far reaching and important consequences for marketing as a discipline and profession;-
As marketers need to demonstrate ROI, rationalize budget requirement and prove future effectiveness by pre-testing activity, they have to adopt an increasingly pragmatic, common sense approach to their discipline. In turn, this means that the edge, the leadership, the heresy and the innate understanding of consumers and buyers that drove marketing and made it vital to, and within, organisations is being eroded ? and the value that marketing brings is being eroded too.
As the value ? both in terms of ROI, growth, increased sales AND leadership, innovation and creativity ? is being eroded, so CEOs and others are starting to see little distinction between marketing, sales and other frontline teams. The difference is that these other teams are easy to understand with more obvious benefits to business ? marketing has always had a ?dubious? role ? now amplified, and so the legitimacy of marketing support and spend is being undermined.
As marketers, and marketing as a whole profession, struggle with the issues described above, the real reason for marketing ? ?to successfully engage with buyers and influencers, on their terms, meeting their beliefs and capturing their imagination ? to drive them to the brand and buy from it? is being lost.
By its very nature, successful marketing surprises, differentiates, provokes and challenges. It compels and excites, promises newness and affirmation, provides heros? and loyalty. All these are the very things that common sense approaches dull down and fail to deliver. Marketers need to reverse the damaging trend described in these musings.
Marketing needs to rebuild its credibility and vitality within the organisations that it represents. Certainly, marketing needs to demonstrate ROI but as mentioned in a previous blog, the way to demonstrate this is to focus on leading and inspiring buyers and internal audiences (a different sort of brand buyer) creating relevant and inspiring marketing, that drives buyers to brands, for a very changed influence and belief structure in buyer psyches.
To do this marketing, as a profession, rather than a few heretics, needs to regain a leadership position in business, through inspiring CMOs and (dare I say it) maverick behavior ? creating real, integrated strategies, broadening the marketing organization, engaging with sales as mutually benefiting partners (rather than supporters) and, most importantly, reversing the trend of process driven technology first, inspiring marketing leadership second.
Marketing Team Direct, The Buyer to Brand agency, supports marketing leaders through strategy definition, stakeholder engagement, organization restructuring, buyer enablement and brand conduct. We create compelling campaigns that inspire buyers and grow brands.
Talk to us today to discover how we can support you as you reinstate marketing?s leading position in your organization.
Source: http://www.marketingteamdirect.com/mtd-blog/fragmented-marketing
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