Scott Brinker

Paul Dunay listed the rise of the marketing technologist as one of his 11 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2011. “Marketers for the last few years have been closet techno geeks, and it’s time for them to rise up — companies need digitally fluent marketers who can apply technologies to make marketing more measurable and scientific.” Hear, hear! So starting in 2011, I’d like to put a spotlight on these rising stars and launch a series …

Interview request for marketing technologists Continue Reading »

If ever you wanted evidence of just how sweeping and fragmented “marketing” is, try making a list of every kind of marketing out there. It starts simple enough, with search marketing, email marketing, product marketing, viral marketing — next thing you know, you have over a hundred terms! Inspired by a conversation with my friend Mark Kapij, I decided to put together such a list. To keep it somewhat manageable, I decided to only include …

131 different kinds of marketing Continue Reading »

Mary Meeker, the renowned Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley, just gave her presentation on Internet trends at the Web 2.0 Summit. Mary’s presentations are legendary because of the clear, data-driven insights she brings to what is a huge and highly chaotic market space. In this presentation, she posed 10 questions that Internet executives should ask and answer. The one I found most interesting was #4: Advertising. She advocates that advertising is still ripe for innovation …

50 billion reasons for marketing innovation Continue Reading »

“Shouldn’t all marketers be marketing technologists?” That’s a comment I’ve been hearing more frequently. One of the more interesting objections to my case for a chief marketing technologist is, “Shouldn’t the CMO be the chief marketing technologist?” I think there are two separate ideas being confounded here: 1. Marketers who are technology savvy. 2. Technologists who apply their skills in marketing. I know, that might sound like a subtle, nit-picky distinction. But there’s a big …

Marketing technologists make fire Continue Reading »

Caron Carlson, editor of FierceCIO, just posted Letting Marketing Handle Its IT, Part 2, continuing the discussion started last week. (See my post on governance vs. management in marketing technology.) Caron highlights some of the comments left by readers to part 1 and draws her conclusion in the last two paragraphs of this new editorial: A comment by CIO Christine W. sums it up well. In her company, she writes, all technologies require her approval …

IT dictators in an age of marketing democracy Continue Reading »

My recent article in InformationWeek — on why the marketing technology genie isn’t going back into the IT bottle — has stirred a few lively responses. Caron Carlson, editor of FierceCIO — got to love that name, especially walking into a debate about the future of marketing technology — responded with an editorial to her readers, Are you ready to let marketing handle its own IT? One of her concerns is my suggestion that, while …

Governance vs. management in marketing technology Continue Reading »