Marketing Management

A headline on Forbes caught my eye the other day: Are CMOs the New CIOs? It cites the Gartner study following the money from IT to marketing and concludes (emphasis added is my own): The convergence between marketing and technology is undeniable, and it’s still in its infancy. Imagine a world where a brand’s success will ultimately come down to how well it can handle and leverage an infinite network of relationships and market interactions. …

CMOs are the new CIOs — crazy or prescient? Continue Reading »

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 …

Marketing technologist: part optimist, part pessimist Continue Reading »

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 …

Silicon Valley Marketing Technologists: Growth Hackers Continue Reading »

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 …

The tech talent time bomb in marketing Continue Reading »

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 …

HubSpot’s brilliant marketing organization structure Continue Reading »

There’s a punchline in there somewhere, but I’m partially serious. While everyone is coming around to the merging of marketing and technology/IT — and the value of hybrid roles to lead and operate at that intersection — the titles that people use for these roles vary tremendously. I like the phrase chief marketing technologist (a biased choice, I admit). My annual survey of marketing technology memes for 2012 favored the titles director of marketing technology, …

What do you call a marketing technologist? Continue Reading »

It’s that time of year again. This blog’s anniversary — our fourth (!) — and time to look at the evolution of the “marketing technologist” meme over the past year. First, let’s start with an update on Google searches: Google Search February 2008 February 2011 February 2012   chief marketing technologist 320 320,000 265,000 ↓ 17% director of marketing technology 7,520 847,000 1,670,000 ↑ 97% marketing technology   625,000 2,670,000 ↑ 327% marketing technologist   109,000 203,000 ↑ 86% …

State of the Marketing Technologist 2012 Continue Reading »

My latest article on Search Engine Land, Landing Pages 3.0, makes the case that landing pages and conversion optimization are moving beyond the era of “best practices.” But I actually believe this is a representative sign of digital marketing maturing more broadly. Consider this excerpt from the article: Whereas the height of Landing Pages 2.0 was an ever-expanding list of rules and rubrics for implementing good landing pages, marketers who have graduated to a Landing …

Digital marketing matures beyond “best practices” Continue Reading »

Bertil Snel, who arranged for me to present on the marketing technologist role at last year’s Adobe Partner Day, just posted a follow-up — the marketer of the future is a “techy” — including a post-event video interview we did backstage. His post is in Dutch, but thanks to the miracle of Google Translate, I’m pretty sure that he’s not making fun of my exaggerated hand waving. But judge for yourself. Here’s the 3-minute “short …

3-minute interview: why marketing technologists now Continue Reading »

Gartner recently released its report on IT predictions for 2012. The subhead of their press release boldly calls out their most stunning conclusion: predictions show IT budgets are moving out of the control of IT departments. Garner predicts that by 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures will be managed outside of the IT department’s budget. Let that sink in for a moment. “The continued trend toward consumerization and cloud computing highlight the movement of certain …

Follow the money from IT to marketing Continue Reading »