{"id":66488,"date":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connectif.ai\/blog\/the-new-role-of-marketers-in-the-age-of-big-data\/"},"modified":"2023-07-03T16:43:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T16:43:37","slug":"the-new-role-of-marketers-in-the-age-of-big-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connectif.ai\/en\/blog\/the-new-role-of-marketers-in-the-age-of-big-data\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Role of Marketers In The Age of Big Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are living in a transformative era for marketing roles. The integration of Big Data in the customer journey has forced CMOs and their teams to face a new paradigm. These roles used to only revolve around outcome measurement, but now they need to refocus towards technological skills in order to keep their relevance. Many are already making strides towards this goal. In this article we explore this metamorphosis.<\/p>\n

From marketing specialist to tech marketer<\/h2>\n

Technological advances in the 20th and 21st century have brought digitalization to our lives. Many manual tasks have been simplified – and the same can be said about marketing. New, powerful techniques and useful digital tools have revolutionized the industry. But the biggest transformation of all has arrived along with the huge amount of data available.<\/p>\n

This transformation has been so radical that it has brought in data scientists, engineers and IT specialists, among others, to many companies in lieu of marketers.<\/p>\n

A new term has emerged to describe these technical profiles that are starting to join marketing teams: they are marketing technologists. And they\u2019re becoming increasingly important in the current landscape, as they provide a hybrid profile (50% marketing, 50% IT) that put technological advances at the service of marketing in order to attract sales opportunities and provide better outcome analysis.<\/p>\n

Roles are clearly evolving, and CMOs should take global marketing team transformations as their priority. This will help immensely during the transition from the old, analogue dynamics to the new, technical-focused ones. Finding usable technical solutions that allow teams to access big data directly (without having to depend on IT teams) should be another priority, as well as providing specific training to employees so they can fully grasp relevant business metrics.<\/p>\n

The end of accountability without authority<\/h2>\n

One of the main problems that CMOs have faced throughout their history is the need for accountability. They\u2019ve been pushed to provide sales results but been deprived from real authority to put new business and commercial strategies forward.<\/p>\n

Reputable sources such as Forrester are predicting a future decline of the CMO position if this role isn\u2019t radically transformed inside companies. This<\/a> is their convincing explanation:<\/p>\n

\u201cForrester sees 2022 as a tale of two CMOs: some with the CMO title will continue to be sidelined by the likes of another chief \u201csomething\u201d officer \u2014 relegated only to the subset of marketing involving brand and promotion \u2014 while elite CMOs (those with data, martech, customer experience, and product chops) will capitalize on this moment in time to duly expand their remit across the marketing mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that the advent of Data-First Marketing<\/a> has brought a new paradigm where CMOs can support their stances and reinforce the role of their marketing teams through big data.<\/p>\n

The advent of Data-First Marketing<\/h3>\n

Data-First Marketing focuses on making the most out of the huge amounts of marketing data currently available, and on using them smartly in order to create a real competitive advantage in any industry. Data analysis is used to define and optimize the sales goals and strategy. For that purpose, a complete transformation from top to bottom is required. That includes human resources, processes, technologies, data and business values.<\/p>\n

Current landscape<\/h2>\n

Priorities have changed for CMOs since the most recent data explosion. The ample availability of behavioral data and detailed information about customers, as well as the role of growing, evolving CDP platforms, have been instrumental in this shift.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, this role should be focused on:<\/p>\n