Digital Marketing - what it's going to mean to you

A couple of years ago a returning client of mine exclaimed that he hadn't realised that I'd turned into such a technical geek. 

I explained that with the advent of Digital Marketing it meant that many marketing professionals had had to do precisely that.




So I was not surprised to see several references to technology merging with marketing in The 50 Marketing Thought Leaders over 50 list  which looks at marketing insights over the next 5 years.

For example:

Loren McDonald - Silverpop:

"Marketers will increasingly shift budget and resources toward behaviour and automation-based programs and rely less on campaigns based on a calendar. This shift requires several changes in the marketer mindset, including: 

• Use and comfort with more sophisticated marketing platforms 
• Tighter relationships with IT 
• Marketer skill sets that are increasingly left brain and process oriented
• And the ability to capture customer behaviour and data across channels and act on it in real or near real time"

Larry Weber -  Racepoint Global

"The biggest change occurring in the marketing industry over the next five years is integrating software as a service into marketing. 

All types of organisations, regardless of size, segment or category are purchasing marketing automation  technology to help their companies accompany their prospects through the sales cycle as well as nurture leads with personalized content"

Eric Weaver – IPG Mediabrands

"Automation and measurement will move forward considerably from where they stand today. Our most precious commodity as marketers is TIME – and the second most precious is PROOF. 

We need automation to let us do more with our time, and measurement to prove our ideas and program work. The tools for both are advancing rapidly – you need to be prepared to learn and use them!"

Well all of this makes absolute sense to me which is why I'm giving you a heads up.  It's thought that it's possible to get so much valuable information from Digital Marketing that you simply won't be able to manage it effectively without employing someone specifically in that role (Variously referred to as "Marketing Technologists" or "Data Scientists") or by at least availing yourself of clever software.

Can you see the writing on the wall?

By the way my age had absolutely nothing to do with me reading that list.

Jane Buswell - aged six and three quarters.