Wayne Lockwood: Where Are You on the Marketing Maturity Curve? [Report]

Tuesday 31 January 2017

Where Are You on the Marketing Maturity Curve? [Report]

Author: Adrienne Whitten

I love data. As a marketer today, you can’t really function without it, and as far as I’m concerned, the more you have, the better.

When I started at Marketo last fall, I was excited to see how data-driven this company is. We are awash in reports, analytics, spreadsheets, charts, and graphs…which is great! So, I was particularly happy when I learned that we were fielding a benchmark survey to gather insights on how our customers from different company sizes, functional areas, and industries are moving along their own paths to digital transformation.

2017 Marketing Benchmark Report–North America

As our own CMO, Chandar Pattabhirim says: “The future of marketing relies on our ability to engage with people in a personal and authentic way.” But, the question is–how exactly are marketers doing this today? So, we asked them, and we are proud to offer you the first of what will be an annual survey to give you marketing benchmarks from some of the best marketers in the world.

The report is rich with useful data, so I won’t try to capture it all here, but as a preview, there are six sections to the report:

Marketing Organization & Technology
Usage & Effectiveness
Multi-Channel Strategy
Lifecycle Marketing
Metrics & ROI
Opportunities

How Marketing Technology Is Making an Impact

My favorite section of the report is the one on marketing technology since I’ve been marketing various kinds of software throughout my entire career, and I’m fascinated by how technology continues to both improve and disrupt business processes across the organization, particularly in marketing.

The question I had on my mind, that I now have an answer to is:

How many types of marketing technology does it take to make an impact?

Based on our survey of over 1,300 marketers, the most common answer was 6-10 different technologies. And more than 60% of marketers surveyed have that or more. What’s even more interesting to me is that larger companies don’t necessarily use more technologies. In fact, it was the mid-sized companies (by a hair) that were using more technology. Perhaps they have more pressure to grow, or to be efficient?

What we do know is that size doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to building a marketing technology stack. Even with small businesses, the majority had more than six technologies. And I actually wonder whether the marketers who said they had five or less were just leaving out pieces that they hadn’t integrated yet.

One thing’s for certain: if you’re using more than six technologies for marketing, you’ll definitely need a hub for a 360-degree view to bring it all together. We, of course, use the Marketo Engagement Platform as ours, and many of our customers also have Marketo at the center of some very impressive marketing stacks.

The great thing about benchmark data is that you can draw your own conclusions and sometimes justify new investments or shifts in strategy. If you’re in the minority that’s using one or even (gasp!) zero marketing technology, perhaps this survey will help you start a discussion with your manager. There are more than 3,800 companies offering marketing software, according to Scott Brinker at Chief Marketing Technologist–at least until he updates his Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic for 2017!

So, dig into our 2017 Marketing Benchmark Report–North America and let us know what you think and what questions you still have about marketing organizations, technology, strategy, channels, metrics, or anything else.