Data-Driven Marketing Campaign Optimization

My report is about how CMOs can use big data and analytics to transform marketing decision-making and advance corporate innovation by using big data to optimize your marketing efforts.  The way I went about writing this report was I interviewed both vendors and CMOs to understand where the marketplace is with respect to actually using marketing automation software / platforms.

There is a lot of software that delivers on the promise, unlike 25 years ago when CRM- Marketing, Sales and Customer Service vendors (either point or suites) had the right ideas and desire to provide this type of business impact, but the software really wasn’t not as advanced as the marketing brochureware (sales pitch and slides) was.

In addition, from working with CMOs when I was in the agency world and throughout my career, the story has been very similar. Software has the potential to create and drive revenue when it’s attached to the right strategy. Technology without the right strategy just means we do more of the wrong things faster. That’s not such a good idea, though it happens every day.

Level Self-Identification Leads to Marketing Transformation

You can’t change what you “don’t know, you don’t know.” In the report, I provide a picture for Marketers so that they can self identify where they are in the various levels of using marketing automation and then to identify what they’d like to be doing. In consulting or advisory work, this is often known as a “gap analysis.” It helps people see the present as well as the possible future state.

What we found in the research is that many Marketers learned that the way they were using marketing automation software as at Level 1 &2. They do not realize there’s more they could do. Others found that they have not chosen software that help them advance their Marketing capabilities to Levels 3, 4, and 5. In the report, I describe some ideas on what those other levels are and what it might look like.

The Five Levels Seek To Drive Marketers To Become Chief Intelligence And Revenue Officers

In theory, let’s say that Marketing really drove revenue in your company. The idea I’m really aiming for in this report is to provoke CMOs and Marketers to think about becoming chief intelligence and revenue officers.

When they are able to show that they can repeatedly and consistently contribute to bottom-line, the senior leadership team will give them respect they want. Long gone will be the days of suffering from what I lovingly call the “Rodney Dangerfield Affect” – i.e., the day of “they just don’t get enough respect” won’t exist anymore. And that would only be a good thing.

Because Marketing software has changed over the last 25 years and can deliver on may more of the promises it aspired to, Marketers must also change. But there is a gap in the talent pool of CMO’s and Marketers that understand how to use marketing automation and customer experience platforms to get to Level 4 and Level 5 activity (see the report). And that’s what I really want to see happen and why I wrote the report. It’s time that we use all this big data revolution and new technology and transform old roles into new roles where respect for the contribution is earned and acknowledged.

 What This Means to You

What may not be obvious is the “so what?” What does this mean to you? Here’s some brain candy to think about, As a CMO or Marketer, you need to:

• Understand how marketing automation platforms have transformed and how big data plays a larger part in today’s CMO role
• Know where your personal skill level are as well as those of people in your organization
• Be able to pick technology that can provide these more advanced capabilities; often times buying technology was the role of IT, now CMOs are responsible for this
• Understand requirements definition documents, capability lists (features and functions), business case justification along with bottom-line benefits — when it comes to choosing technology
• Fill the skill sets in your organization so that you are able to truly justify to your senior leadership team why you want a larger budget and new technology.

I don’t think you can wait to do this. I think it will only going to get worse, not easier to pick the right technology for today’s CMO and Marketer. Make sure you are prepared by educating yourself on your options and learn how to choose technology so that you can show your contribution to the bottom-line.

I’d love to hear from some folks who have mastered some or all of :choosing technology and business justification capabilities”— how you did it! You never know, you might become part of my disruptive case studies library!

@DrNatalie