Marketing is becoming increasingly dependent on technology. In 2012, the research firm Gartner predicted that a company’s chief marketing officer would be spending more on technology than its chief information officer by 2017. As marketing budgets continue to grow faster than many IT budgets, this prediction is well on its way to becoming true.
With this increased emphasis on marketing technology, it’s no surprise that new positions are being created to help navigate this revolution. One of these new positions is a Marketing Technologist. Currently, only large businesses can really afford the luxury of hiring a chief marketing technologist. According to Gartner, the number of large companies with a CMT in 2013 was 71% compared with a projected 89% of large companies with a CMT in 2016.
But as this position continues to grow in popularity and necessity, more businesses and growing companies are seeing a need for highly technical marketers in their marketing departments. Keep reading to learn more about the role of a marketing technologist and some things to think about before you seriously consider hiring one.
What Is a Marketing Technologist?
The best way to describe the marketing technologist position is a blend of a marketing and IT professional. Since this is a new and very technical role, most people have who moved into this position have held previous titles as either a VP of Marketing, Chief Information Officer, or even both. Also, many professionals who are successful in this role have a background in IT Management or Software Development, but also have a passion for marketing. Overall, the marketing technologist helps companies create a technology vision for marketing.
Stay Up On Current Trends and Latest Technology
Part of creating this technology vision is staying on top of current marketing technology and trends. There are now so many software providers with offerings ranging from CRMs, content management platforms, marketing automation, social media management and the list goes on and on. A marketing technologist can help you find and implement the best tools that will have the most impact on your business. The faster your company can embrace current trends and be on the forefront of new trends, the faster you will improve your bottom line. Don’t let your company get left behind because you’re late to adopt new technologies.
Improve Content Marketing Tactics
Another way to think of a marketing technologist is a person who can help bridge the gap between non-technical marketers and the providers of essential software. In regards to content marketing, a marketing technologist can help find and manage content management platforms like WordPress, Curata, or NewsCred. They are able to figure out which platform will work best within your company and then put it into action.
Another way marketing technologists can improve your company’s content marketing efforts is to track and measure your success through marketing automation. You can then know what is working and what is not and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Finally, marketing technologists know how to make content more interactive using Ceros of Uberflip to help engage your audience. Creating this more interactive content is fairly new and may be out of the skillset of the content marketers on your team. Many large companies and growing companies all use content marketing as part of their business strategy, and hiring a marketing technologist could be extremely beneficial for both sized companies.
Provide Insight and Management
Big data is the key to the future and marketing technologists are able to understand data analytics and software. Whether you’re a small or large company, it can be difficult to sort through computer generated data to determine what strategies have been successful. But especially for large companies, diving into Google data for predictive analytics can be extremely powerful, but also extremely difficult to do if you don’t have someone with a strong background in technology performing the task.
Highly Sought After
The marketing technologist has a unique blend of skills that are very hard to find. Also, many schools don’t have digital marketing programs that have a heavy focus on technology so it’s hard to find traditional marketers with technical skill sets. Right now, finding someone with a strong background in technology and passion for marketing is not only very hard to do, but it’s also very expensive to hire these professionals. One option is to use a recruiting firm to help you find this talent, or use a contract staffing firm to help you hire this talent on a contract-basis and avoid the high salary costs.
Depending on the needs and size of your company right now, you may be able to get by without marketing technologist. But as big data and new technologies continue to change what we think of as traditional marketing, it will become essential to have a tech-savvy marketer on your team.
