New research from Mar­ke­to has revealed how senior mar­keters believe that the mar­ket­ing func­tion of busi­ness­es needs to fun­da­men­tal­ly change in the next few years. The reform is nec­es­sary to sup­port the inte­grat­ed, omnichan­nel activ­i­ty mar­keters require to under­stand and pro­vide for the com­plex ways con­sumers nav­i­gate dig­i­tal media. In addi­tion, change is need­ed to facil­i­tate the growth of mar­ket­ing depart­ments as a rev­enue gen­er­at­ing chan­nel, one that is tak­ing both the lead and over­all own­er­ship of man­ag­ing con­sumer jour­neys.

Senior mar­keters believe mar­ket­ing depart­ments need to under­go fun­da­men­tal change, accord­ing to research from The Econ­o­mist’s Intel­li­gence Unit, on behalf of Mar­ke­to. The Rise of The Mar­keter, Dri­ving Engage­ment, Expe­ri­ence and Rev­enue, sur­veyed 478 CMOs and senior mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als, gaug­ing their thoughts and opin­ions on the chal­lenges fac­ing brands and mar­keters.

How can mar­keters pre­pare for the chal­lenges ahead and meet the demands for bet­ter cus­tomer expe­ri­ences?

Why Is Change Needed?

Mar­ket­ing is evolv­ing from a depart­ment that costs mon­ey to one that is a proven source of rev­enue. But before we get there, mar­ket­ing depart­ments need to adapt their fun­da­men­tal busi­ness mod­els, struc­tures, and modes of oper­a­tions to match grow­ing cus­tomer expec­ta­tions and demands, accord­ing to the report.

Let’s look at five key trends chang­ing the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments work.

1. Managing The Customer Experience

More than one-third of respon­dents to Mar­ke­to’s sur­vey agreed that they were respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence today. This fig­ure is expect­ed to increase to around 75 per­cent in the next three to five years, as mar­ket­ing depart­ments take own­er­ship of the over­all cus­tomer expe­ri­ence.

With the diverse range of chan­nels that make up the con­sumer expe­ri­ence, mar­keters will man­age the inte­gra­tion and syn­er­gy between those chan­nels. As Jamie Moldaf­sky, CMO at Wells Far­go, explained:

“There is more of a need for the artic­u­la­tion of an inte­grat­ed, holis­tic approach than before, sim­ply because there are myr­i­ad chan­nels and con­tact points.”

The wide scope of the con­sumer jour­ney means that a diverse range of inter­con­nect­ed skills and teams capa­ble of deliv­er­ing on many fronts are nec­es­sary – increas­ing­ly this respon­si­bil­i­ty is being tak­en on by mar­ket­ing depart­ments.

2. Driving Engagement

Empow­er­ing great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence is seen by mar­keters to be a key dri­ver for engage­ment, which is itself increas­ing­ly being regard­ed by mar­keters as a cru­cial touch­point to build­ing loy­al­ty and advo­ca­cy in con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys.

Engage­ment is viewed as a strong dri­ver for sales and repeat sales:

• 63 per­cent of mar­keters sur­veyed say that engage­ment is man­i­fest­ed in “cus­tomer renewals, reten­tion and repeat pur­chas­es.”
• Over­all 78 per­cent of mar­keters see engage­ment as occur­ring in the mid­dle stages of the fun­nel, with 15 per­cent of those defin­ing engage­ment as that which has an impact on rev­enue.

The goal is to increase the depth and rich­ness of engage­ment and inter­ac­tions, help­ing nur­ture con­sumers as the nav­i­gate the pur­chase jour­ney, and ulti­mate­ly to dri­ve rev­enues.

3. Increasing Revenues

The report high­lights that all too often, mar­ket­ing is seen as a cost cen­ter, rather than an arm of the busi­ness that dri­ves rev­enues. Over­all, respon­dents said that in three to five years, approx­i­mate­ly four out of five com­pa­nies will con­sid­er mar­ket­ing to be less of a cost cen­ter and more of a rev­enue dri­ver.

At the moment mar­keters agree that their depart­ments are being viewed as both cost cen­ters and rev­enue dri­vers, with 69 per­cent and 68 per­cent, respec­tive­ly, agree­ing they were viewed in that way by their com­pa­nies. This sen­ti­ment, how­ev­er, is expect­ed to move toward the lat­ter opin­ion in com­ing years.

Today mar­keters are increas­ing­ly able to show how they are dri­ving rev­enue by mea­sur­ing the impact of their influ­ence. Per­haps the best exam­ple of this is lead gen­er­a­tion, and the abil­i­ty to track oppor­tu­ni­ties as they move from unqual­i­fied, to mar­ket­ing-qual­i­fied, to sales-qual­i­fied, to a close.

Mar­ket­ing depart­ments are increas­ing­ly tak­ing own­er­ship of entire cus­tomer jour­neys. The capa­bil­i­ty to mea­sure that impact is becom­ing much more attrib­ut­able. As Mayur Gup­ta, Glob­al Head, Mar­ket­ing Tech­nol­o­gy & Inno­va­tion at Kim­ber­ly-Clark sum­ma­rized:

“The CMO has to dri­ve an expe­ri­ence that can win that con­sumer at any point of the fun­nel, because there real­ly is no fun­nel any­more. The con­sumer is at the cen­ter. Mar­ket­ing has to be able to inspire the consumer’s behav­ior every­where in the consumer’s world.”

For that rea­son, mar­ket­ing depart­ments are begin­ning to gain recog­ni­tion for the val­ue that they bring to a busi­ness­es’ rev­enue chan­nels. The change will mean that new skills are nec­es­sary in the indus­try to mea­sure and track the effi­ca­cy of mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

4. Addressing The Skills Shortage

Espe­cial­ly among those mar­keters who con­sid­ered change to be urgent, 39 per­cent want new to recruit employ­ees with new skills able to cater to con­sumer demand for dig­i­tal engage­ment, and in the field of mar­ket­ing oper­a­tions and tech­nol­o­gy.

• 32 per­cent of mar­keters want to recruit those skilled in the areas of demand gen­er­a­tion and data analy­sis.
• 27 per­cent are seek­ing recruits skilled in cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and engage­ment.
• In the cre­ative skills of graph­ic design and arts, and adver­tis­ing and brand­ing, 16 per­cent and 26 per­cent of mar­keters, respec­tive­ly, report a skills short­age in these area.

The skills short­age is a huge chal­lenge in the dig­i­tal indus­try. Mar­ket­ing depart­ments are already feel­ing the need to recruit tech­ni­cal­ly- and ana­lyt­i­cal­ly-mind­ed pro­fes­sion­als to meet an increas­ing­ly data-dri­ven world.

5. Investing Big In Digital And Data

When it comes to invest­ment and bud­gets, dig­i­tal and data oper­a­tions will dom­i­nate bud­gets in the next three to five years.

The three great­est chan­nels that mar­keters intend to spend their bud­gets on will be social, mobile, and email mar­ket­ing, with ana­lyt­ics being used to tie togeth­er and inte­grate brand efforts on these chan­nels.

The sheer impact of the way dig­i­tal chan­nels have tak­en prece­dence in con­sumer lives means that mar­ket­ing bud­gets and depart­ments need to be restruc­tured in a way that is sup­ports strong dig­i­tal per­for­mance.

Verdict: Marketing Departments Need To Fundamentally Change

When asked whether to score, on a scale of 1 (strong­ly dis­agree) to 10 (strong­ly agree), the state­ment that “mar­keters need to change their approach over the next three to five years to bet­ter sup­port the busi­ness” an over­whelm­ing pro­por­tion of senior mar­keters indi­cat­ed that they were strong­ly in favor of a sig­nif­i­cant change in approach.

In addi­tion:

• 81 per­cent agreed with the state­ment “we need to change the struc­ture and design of our mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tion to meet the needs of our busi­ness over the next three to five years.”
• 19 per­cent of respon­dents con­sid­er that there is no need to change the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments are func­tion­ing, or that the “way we are oper­at­ing now is the same as the way mar­ket­ing depart­ments will oper­ate in the future.”
• 52 per­cent of respon­dents believe in grad­ual, or incre­men­tal change, mak­ing small opti­miza­tions and mea­sur­ing the effi­ca­cy of new changes.
• 29 per­cent of respon­dents believe that mar­ket­ing depart­ments must change their approach to bet­ter sup­port their busi­ness­es.

This final group of mar­keters believe in urgent change and high­light a need for mar­keters to keep up with tech­nol­o­gy and data-dri­ven com­peti­tors. This group is par­tic­u­lar­ly keen on estab­lish­ing a new prece­dent in which mar­ket­ing depart­ments are proven to dri­ve rev­enue, rather than being seen as a busi­ness expense.

Change Means Opportunity

Over­all, the results of the sur­vey show that mar­keters are striv­ing to catch up with the high expec­ta­tions of dig­i­tal-savvy con­sumers. More than any­thing, mar­ket­ing depart­ments have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to change and improve their efforts. As the gap between what is expect­ed and what mar­keters are capa­ble of deliv­er­ing decrease, con­sumers – and the rep­u­ta­tion of mar­ket­ing as a busi­ness func­tion – will ben­e­fit.