Technological advancements are happing fast, giving us more possibilities to do marketing and sales every day. At the same time, it poses some serious challenges as welel. Marketing leaders are at the forefront of this shift. They are tasked with leveraging new technologies to drive business growth, improve customer experience and stay ahead of the competition. Adapting to the incredibly fast changes we see today is not an easy job. With this blog post we are focusing on the primary challenges companies face because of evolutions in marketing technology, and the strategies you can implement to overcome these hurdles.
A lot of companies tend to rely on legacy systems. These can be quite complex and often support some key processes within the company. Think about implementing a CRM platform, migrating to a cloud based alternative or integrating artificial intelligence in your current processes.
When legacy systems are no longer developing any further, or when newer and better systems emerge, migrating to these new systems can be hard. Especially for smaller companies that don’t have the resources and/or knowhow within the company.
So these things get postponed to a ‘better time’, when there are resources. But you guessed it: there is never an ideal time to do it, and the more time passes, the harder it gets to actually migrate.
Your business is constantly gathering data from various sources. Think about your website, social media channels, your email marketing platform and all the manual data put in by colleagues, for example after a sales call.
Managing the data effectively while also ensuring data security is becoming increasingly challenging. There can be data silos within the company, inconsistencies are very common, and the risk of data breaches is real. These can hinder your team to leverage data for your company’s strategic decisions.
We don’t need to tell you that technology is changing incredibly fast. What is cutting-edge today might be outdated next month. As a CMO, you need to constantly stay informed about important technological trends and changes. This requires a lot of time and effort, time you can’t spend on coaching your team or on decision making.
When you are adopting new technologies in your organization, you will also need the necessary skills. Otherwise, it will be very hard to the most out of any new piece of technology.
Building these skills in your team takes time. Most companies just don’t make time in their team’s busy schedule to learn new skills. On top of that, hiring is already not easy. The war for talent is making it hard to find the right people, especially if you are looking for advanced skills that are related to new technologies. That makes it hard to capitalize on technological advancements.
Today’s customers are demanding. Also in B2B, people expect high levels of personalization, convenience and a seamless experience. Meeting these expectations requires state-of-the-art technology as well as a deep understanding of your customers’ needs. Getting your team onboarded on the technology is already a big enough challenge. Developing and maintaining a deeper understanding of your customer is another challenge that takes time and effort.
As a CMO, you should have a clear long-term technology roadmap that aligns with your company’s overall goals. This roadmap should prioritize technologies that deliver the most value to your organization. It should outline a phased approach to implementation. That way, you should be able to minimize disruption of your current business processes and transition smoothly to newer platforms as time goes on.
The challenge is often more in people and skills than in the technology itself. Your team members need the right skills for them to successfully start using new technology. To bridge this skill gap, companies should invest in ongoing training and development programs. Upskilling your existing employees and attracting new talent with the right skills are crucial if you want to stay ahead in technology.
Managing data from different sources and keeping it safe is an essential part of your digital marketing success. Without it, it’s hard to make data-driven decisions. As a CMO, you nee to break down data silos and work on high levels of data acccuracy. Wrong or incomplete data make for a lot of errors and underperforming campaigns. With good data, you can supercharge your lead generation. Accurate data are also important when you do analytics and report to management. Data security and accuracy should be a top priority to maintain trust and protect sensitive information.
Enhancing customer experience should always be at the heart of every strategy. That includes your marketing and sales technology. With the right platform, you can personalize marketing campaigns and create seamless digital interactions with your target audience. That’s the way to help your company meet the high expectations of today’s customers.
In the end, keeping track of technological advancements and new features is a time consuming process. And for most CMOs it’s absolutely not the main focus or something that is in their KPIs. Forming strategic partnerships with technology providers can help you get access to tons of information about the latest innovations and to expert support. These partnerships can accelerate the adoption process in your team and help you stay competitive. Their specialists can quickly pinpoint those features that are especially interesting for your organization, and can set up advanced workflows much more quickly than your inexperienced team can.
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