The Rise of the Marketing Technologist content was presented by Jim Suchara and Dave Bachleda at the SIM Detroit meeting last night, which was attended by IT practitioners mostly at management or executive levels. The general idea of the presentation is that marketing and technology are already in the middle of a collision course due to the current influx of marketing technologies. The question before organizations is who should be in charge of these new technologies? Should IT? Should Marketing? Both?
From the discussion after the presentation, the answer is not clearcut and depend on the needs of the specific organization (although these needs may change with time as the technology and use continues to evolve). Many marketing people have a communications and/or PR background are not necessarily very tech-saavy. Vice versa, many technologists don’t necessarily think in terms of marketing strategy when they look at a new technology. The major consensus is that there has to be some sort of joint ownership due to the special expertise that both marketing and IT bring to the table.
One interesting aspect of the conversation was trying to find marketing technologists within an organization. Perhaps marketing people who are somewhat tech-saavy or technologists who understand some of the business and strategy aspects of technologies.
As someone who considers themselves a marketing technologist, I think that marketing technologists can come from either IT or marketing. They may be people who you might otherwise overlook because their current job doesn’t require them to showcase these skills. People who may have side jobs or hobbies as web entrepreneurs. People who have a lot of tech gadgets or are very active in social media.
There also is the opportunity to train people who may already have some aspects of marketing technologist in their current jobs. People who do SEO or analytics (who do it well) have to have technical knowledge of how web pages are put together, as well as knowledge of conversion and marketing message. Anyone who does digital marketing may have good skills to build on, as well as web developers and web designers who often are involved in some aspects of product development (especially for online products).
New technologies are not only changing how we marketing and engage with customers but how organizations are structured and operate. Handing this idea of marketing technology will certainly be an ongoing process which will be different for each organization according to their needs.
Where do you see marketing technologists?
(photo by izzyplante, on Flickr)