Scott Brinker

Engineers are becoming a lot like marketers too

May 14, 2012 / Agile Marketing / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

I spend a lot of time thinking about how engineering culture and capabilities are seeping into marketing’s ecosystem. Marketers are becoming more tech-savvy by the day, which is a fascinating transformation to behold. But it struck me recently how much the inverse is happening too: many of the signature characteristics of marketing have now become a part of engineering culture. Engineers are becoming quite marketing-savvy in their trade. This isn’t about engineers working in marketing …

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Marketing technologist: part optimist, part pessimist

May 7, 2012 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

I think a great marketing technologist should be part optimist, part pessimist. The optimist needs to indulge his or her imagination to drive the organization forward. To wonder, “what if?” To keep an open mind about new technologies and processes. To engage in the sort of creative free association and collaborative brainstorming that leads to innovation. And, most importantly, to be fearless in diving into the implementation of those ideas, making them real. The pessimist …

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Silicon Valley Marketing Technologists: Growth Hackers

April 30, 2012 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

Awesome little essay by Andrew Chen from last week: Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing. As far as I’m concerned, you can almost perfectly substitute “growth hacker” with “marketing technologist,” as much of the rationale for this new breed of marketer is the same. Here’s his opening paragraph (emphasis added is my own): The new job title of “Growth Hacker” is integrating itself into Silicon Valley’s culture, emphasizing that coding and technical chops are …

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The tech talent time bomb in marketing

April 27, 2012 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 2 Comments

One of the other points that leaped out at me in the Econsultancy/Adobe report I discussed earlier this week — Are agencies hopelessly screwed or on the verge of a spectacular Renaissance? — was the increasing challenges of finding good technical talent. Under the heading “the tech talent time bomb,” the report cites research from McKinsey that claims: “By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep …

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Are agencies hopelessly screwed or on the verge of a spectacular Renaissance?

April 25, 2012 / Agencies / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

Maybe both. It would be hard to overstate how thoroughly disrupted marketing has been by technology over the past 10 years — or how much disruption still awaits in the decade ahead. It’s against that backdrop that the giants of the marketing industry — agencies and their conglomerate ecosystems — are increasingly wrestling with their evolving role in this new era. Not unlike the struggle of marketing technology within client organizations — which is not …

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Brand impact or conversion rate? Both, please!

April 18, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

From my latest article on Search Engine Land, 5 Colorful Sketches on Conversion Optimization: The accompanying write-up in the article: There can be a perceived tension between conversion rate optimization and brand impact, which dates back to the early rivalries of direct marketing vs. brand marketing. But it’s a false choice: you can — and should — do great on both dimensions. Sure, there are cheesy used car salesman type tactics that you can use …

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The marketing technology ecosystem wheel

April 6, 2012 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

Experian — another one of those multi-billion dollar companies engaged in enterprise marketing — released their 2012 Digital Marketer Trend and Benchmark Report earlier this week. Right up in the front of this hefty 154-page report is a spread on understanding the marketing technology ecosystem — which is clearly the substrate upon which modern marketing is being built. Experian includes a couple of great infographics that help visualize all of the different pieces in that …

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HubSpot’s brilliant marketing organization structure

April 5, 2012 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 5 Comments

Jonathon Colman, SEO marketer for REI, shared with me a deck he put together for ad:Tech, From an Army of 1 to Agile SEO Teams, which has some great insights on agile marketing. Here’s his deck: From an Army of 1 to Agile SEO Teams – adTech 2012 View more PowerPoint from Jonathon Colman At the end, he included a number of links to other resources on agile marketing (including this blog, thank you!). As …

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Why landing pages are awesome (a Venn diagram)

April 2, 2012 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

I picked up the new 53 Paper app for the iPad this weekend. Really a beautiful piece of software for sketching ideas without having to be an Illustrator jockey. Inspired me to share why I find landing pages (and microsites, conversion paths, and other kinds of post-click marketing) — the focus of my company, ion interactive — so fascinating and rich with possibilities: The intersection of performance marketing, content marketing, and technical wizardry. What’s not …

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Techs hiring creatives to embrace the creative world

March 29, 2012 / Agencies / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

A big part of this blog is encouraging marketers to bring technologists fully into their teams as a way to grok the use of technology in modern marketing. A couple of days ago, AdAge ran an article — Why Facebook Is Hiring Ad Agency Creatives — that illustrates an example of the inverse: a technology company hiring creatives to better embrace the possibilities with the creative community. During a session at the 4A’s Transformation Conference, …

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