Marketers and Technologists, United they Stand

With marketing technologies on the rise, collaboration between BtoB marketers and technologists has become more prevalent and will continue to be a high priority throughout 2014. “Marketing is about technology and the marketers that embrace technology and the ability to work with technologists function at a higher level,” says Naylor Gray, Bulldog’s Director of Media Services. This joint effort empowers marketing organizations because it equips them with teams that can build and utilize robust technologies and as a result, deliver superior results. However, both teams must understand each other’s needs and limitations to leverage their resources in the most efficient and effective ways.

Now, a marketing automation specialist doesn’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of developing a content marketing program and a content writer isn’t usually required to understand how to actually deploy emails in a marketing automation platform. But, understanding exactly what each other needs in order to best execute these activities will set both teams up for success.

Lead nurturing programs also need input from both marketers and technologists. A marketing team will typically build a nurture program and develop the strategy and messaging, while the marketing automation or technology team will actualize the messages by deploying them. When building a solution like this, both departments need to collaborate to understand overall strategy and program goals.

Social monitoring tools are another area where marketers and technologists can join forces to enhance functionality. Let’s say an organization shops around for a social monitoring tool and needs to test demos. It would be wise for both a marketer and a technologist to be involved. The marketer will obviously need to use the tool on a regular basis to listen to and engage with its audience, but the technologist will have the expertise to explore the backend process and confirm if and how the platform integrates with an existing CRM.

Naylor also noted that next year will likely see increased adoption of named account strategies, which will require more targeted segmentation. These focused account strategies will drive increases in new channel tactics and the technologies that deploy them. “These technologies include things like ad retargeting platforms, marketing clouds and measurement systems, and will involve incorporating offline or out of channel behaviors into contact data records,” Naylor adds. As you can see, the combined efforts of marketers and technologists will be required for implementation.

The solutions mentioned above only scrape the surface of where marketers and technologists can unite in powerful ways. More importantly, marketing organizations that embrace these new technologies will be capable of building platforms that enable them to plan, model and measure marketing activities. After all, being able to do so is how marketers can prove revenue attribution.

As a marketer or technologist, where do you see a need for improved collaboration? Or, are your teams are already well aligned?

Source: B2C_Business

Marketers and Technologists, United they Stand