What Does The Future Hold For A Marketing Director?

Gartner analyst Laura McLellan has predicted  2017 a company’s Chief Marketing Officer will “spend more  than their counterpart Chief Information Officers”.  We are already seeing IT becoming increasingly important for marketing departments and a merging of these skills sets. With social media, big data, real-time analytics and data security now a fundamental part of any marketing campaign this increase in spend is not unexpected.

As new software is becoming more refined it is increasingly important that new technologies are fully integrated. Part of this process involves customisation of digital tools in order to fit business needs. This is where tech understanding and marketing value combine. In order to adapt to these changes, marketing and IT departments should not be seen as separate. The lines between these skill sets are becoming increasingly blurred and a data driven digital strategy should be an integrated part of any successful campaign.

We can see that marketing departments will be employing within their team those comfortable with these new digital skills, such as using big data and being able to personalise web experiences. New jobs titles, such as ‘Chief Marketing Technologists’ are being banded around to describe those individuals within marketing departments with these specific skills. However, we shouldn’t focus on job titles but instead pay attention to the merging of roles and responsible. It is becoming clear that it will be through new technology that we will be able to get the best of ECRM, personalisation and mobile.