64% of B2B marketers feel underinvested in technology

Any doubt that marketing is becoming a technology-powered discipline? The ITSMA (Information Technology Services Marketing Association) shared results from their latest survey on marketing technology at a briefing outside of Boston earlier this week. The slide above shows the big picture result: today, 21% of B2B marketers believe that marketing technology is critical to deliver on marketing’s business objectives. But in 2 years, 60% expect marketing technology will be critical to that mission. This survey …

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Marketing Technology Critical to Success

Marketo seeks $75 million IPO in marketing automation

Late yesterday, the story broke on TechCrunch that Marketo has filed for a $75 million IPO. Congratulations to everyone there, but a special nod to the early founders Phil Fernandez, Jon Miller, and David Morandi, who were key folks at early marketing software pioneer Epiphany 10 years ago (which itself, tangentially, was founded by Steve Blank, the fellow who inspired Eric Ries in the launch of the Lean Startup movement). Taken in the context of …

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Marketo S-1 Filing Financial Excerpt

Marketing takes over IT, sales takes over marketing

The start of this new quarter has proven to be a tipping point. We’ve now heard of several leading enterprises that are undertaking a major restructuring of marketing, IT, and sales to better align themselves with the market forces of the 21st century. Under this new organizational structure — code-named “Greener Grass” at one Fortune 500 firm — the following changes are being implemented immediately: Marketing will now officially take over IT. This shift was inevitable …

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Reengineering Greener Grass

Marketers must be equal parts creative, tech, and finance

Earlier this month, I read Oracle/Eloqua’s new report on Defining the Modern Marketer: From Ideal to Real. One of the more fascinating aspects of the report, based on a survey of 556 B2B marketers, was the shifting balance between the “art” of marketing and the “science” of marketing. Which lead me to write: what do you mean by marketing as a science? To better answer that question, I was able to have the following Q&A …

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Nick Bell

A CMO, a CIO, and a chief digital officer walk into a bar…

The CMO asks for a drink. The bartender says, “Hmm, no, sorry, from the look of you, I don’t think you know how to hold your liquor.” The CIO asks for a drink. The bartender replies, “I know you know how to drink, but sorry, you haven’t paid off your tab from all those drinks you bought over the past 10 years.” The chief digital officer approaches the bar, but before he can ask, the …

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Chief Digital Officer Sweet Spot

Build and nurture an analytical culture across marketing

I’ve come to believe that organizational culture is the quintessential competitive advantage. That’s why, for all the tremendous changes underway in the world of marketing today, I’m most fascinated by the evolution of culture in marketing departments, as a function of new responsibilities, new technologies, and — most of all — new people with new skills and perspectives. My presentation earlier this week on agile marketing was, at its core, a talk about culture. One …

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Agile marketing for a world of constant change

[UPDATE: I’ve also posted a video recording of this agile marketing presentation that I gave at the Marketo User Summit in April 2013.] Today I’m giving a presentation at the Marketing Operations Executive Summit on agile marketing. Given the tremendous disruption in marketing and business today, I truly believe that embracing an agile approach to marketing management may be the single most valuable decision an organization can make. Here’s my slide deck, along with an …

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That is a dead marketing plan.

Nationwide CMO credits marketing technologist

On the heels of Gartner’s recent confirmation that marketing technologists are proliferating within marketing departments, I came across this great example in an article in Insurance & Technology — Nationwide CMO: ‘I Have Double-Digit Million Dollars in IT Projects’. In an interview with associate editor Nathan Golia, Nationwide’s EVP and CMO Matt Jauchius acknowledged that marketing is now investing a tremendous amount of money into technology — the double-digit millions of dollars mentioned in the …

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Nationwide Insurance

Gartner confirms 70% have chief marketing technologist

Last year, Gartner found a surprising result — should I have been surprised? — from their high-tech marketing budget survey: 72% of their respondents indicated that there was a “chief marketing technologist” type role in their organization. While I’ve been predicting the rise of the marketing technologist for several years, that struck me as a spectacularly rapid adoption rate. Had we reached a tipping point? Now, last week, they released key findings from their U.S. …

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70% Have a Chief Marketing Technologist

What do you mean by marketing as a science?

I’m fascinated by this chart that was included in a recent report by Eloqua and BtoB Magazine, Defining the Modern Marketer: From Ideal to Real. Based on a survey of 556 B2B marketing professionals from companies of all sizes and industries, the report reveals current perceptions about what “modern marketing” is today — and should be tomorrow. At first glance, the tall blue and red peaks in the middle pop out, showing that the largest percentage …

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Marketing: Science or Art?