How to future-proof marketing

Insights

• The C-suite expects marketing to drive a larger percentage of sales — particularly in an era of inflation, shifting customer behavior, and fragmented media and sales channels.
• The tension between short-term and long-term planning also hinders marketing efforts. Nearly three-quarters of marketers (73%) say that the emphasis on their immediate needs has come at a cost to long-term planning.
• B2B buyers often insist that their work interactions should mirror the best of their personal interactions. These buyers are frequently digitally focused Millennial and Gen Z customers, who now make up nearly two-thirds (64%) of B2B buying groups.
• Future marketing operations and technologies will look nothing like those that got us here. In the past year or so, tech has become available that can transform how marketing works end-to-end — particularly for some of the most critical priorities.
• The technology is here, but CMOs are not taking full advantage of these new capabilities and opportunities. This often is the result of three factors: poor data maturity, inability to operationalize technology, and fear of getting it wrong.
• A full marketing transformation requires new strategies and bold actions that address talent, innovation, and leadership.

CMOs in the spotlight

Pressure is building on chief marketing officers (CMOs), both from the boardroom and from themselves. Data and instincts tell marketing leaders that the status quo no longer delivers the same results that it once did.

Surveys reliably find that CMOs are dissatisfied with their marketing organization’s digital performance and the well-paid agencies that help them connect with customers. At the same time, the C-suite expects marketing to drive a larger percentage of sales — particularly in an era of inflation, shifting customer behavior, and fragmented media and sales channels. Marketing today is increasingly important, but the ability to deliver effective marketing is more difficult as channels expand, technology matures, and content demand accelerates. This dynamic frustrates both marketers and customers through ineffective marketing campaigns and irrelevant ads. However, CMOs who challenge traditional thinking and reimagine their organizational structure and approach will see the benefits of a new future-proof marketing organization.

Getting the brand experience right

There is no single way to succeed as a CMO. The job is molded by many factors, from a company’s market position to macroeconomic dynamics to industry-specific needs. The challenges are often a clash of traditional practices and a rapidly evolving reality. Generally, CMOs biggest headaches fall into the following three categories:

• Transforming the organization, operations, and technology.
• Maximizing value from agency relationships.
• Keeping pace with buyer groups and consumers.

Transforming the organization, operations, and technology

CMOs want their brand to be relevant and distinctive for each audience, every time. One size fits all brand experiences need to evolve as markets fragment. A 2023 survey of US CMOs found that nearly two-thirds increased their number of marketing channels during the previous three years. The growing number of channels makes it difficult for marketers to deliver consistent and personalized messages, which in turn can leave customers bombarded with distracting and irrelevant offers.

Customers aren’t the only ones who face these fragmented experiences; some inside the marketing organization are also frustrated. Companies in general have struggled for years to break down organizational siloes that held back efforts to adopt agile principles, digitize operations, and develop new operating models. For marketers, these legacy silos hamper effective collaboration with sales and coordination of global and local marketing initiatives. The tension between short-term and long-term planning also hinders marketing efforts. Nearly three-quarters of marketers (73%) say that the emphasis on their immediate needs has come at a cost to long-term planning, according to a 2023 Econsultancy report.

Maximizing value from agency relationships

Agencies offer a wealth of experience, expertise in new technologies, and expansive creativity. Those are valuable to their clients, but the common business model (charge clients per person, per hour) offers no economies of scale.

Marketing leaders are increasingly concerned about how agency resources are allocated. Much of the effort goes into “last mile” creative development, such as translating, localizing, and creating new versions — actions that now are more easily automated. An overwhelming majority of marketing’s creative workers are using AI extensively, but too few use the technology in the final production stages.

With tightening budgets, this approach offers CMOs little room to maneuver, other than doing less with less.

Keeping pace with buyer groups and consumers

CMOs are expected to understand their customers intimately. And often marketing leaders do have strong insights but struggle to execute a strategy that unifies traditional campaigns with customer-initiated, real-time interactions.

Companies such as Netflix and Spotify have set incredibly high customer expectations by successfully delivering one-to-one personalization at scale through automation. As a result, about three-quarters of customers expect other brands to react to their unique needs and identities. Instead, customers often encounter impersonal, one-size-fits-all broadcast communications, poorly targeted digital messages, and marketing websites and apps that rarely reflect previous interactions.

These dynamics create an inconsistent and frustrating experience that reflects poorly on the brand. It’s not surprising then that 43% of internet users worldwide (ages 16 to 64) use ad blocking tools at least once a month. Also, a similar proportion (46%) of Gen Z consumers are willing to pay to avoid ads.

These elevated expectations go beyond direct-to-consumer brands. B2B buyers often insist that their work interactions should mirror the best of their personal interactions. More than half (57%) of B2B buying is expected to be online in the next five years. And more than two-thirds (69%) say they are more likely to buy from suppliers that are “digitally innovative.” These buyers are frequently digitally focused millennial and Gen Z customers, who now make up nearly two-thirds (64%) of B2B buying groups.

Pressure is mounting on CMOs

The C-suite — and particularly the CFO — demands greater impact from their CMOs and scrutinizes the marketing budget more closely. Many marketing leaders are concerned that CFOs question the value of creativity, especially long-term investments in brand building.

This attention certainly makes the job harder but also gives CMOs more and better opportunities to contribute to their companies’ bottom lines. Research shows the vast impact of marketing when done well and also shines a light on the untapped potential.

Much of this scrutiny, as well as the benefits, are focused on personalized messages and content, which have been shown to drive growth. Four out of five consumers say they are more likely to purchase a product or service when the company’s marketing message is personalized, a report from Epsilon has found. In addition, research has shown that personalization can deliver five to eight times the return on marketing investment and a 10% increase in sales.

Even so, marketing leaders must understand the complexity of the buying journey and realize that much of the data is opaque. Marketers too often believe they understand the “purchase funnels” but misunderstand the signals, assuming they are more definitive than they actually are. A vast majority of B2B buyers — 95% — are not in the market for services in any individual quarter. Also, buyers often explore rather than take a linear route to a purchase.

The balancing act is tricky. Marketing leaders need to embrace opportunities for personal experience and relevance. At the same time, they need to guard against common traps, such as running blindly to the next fad or adopting personalization that is more creepy than helpful.

Personalization will only get more difficult for CMOs as they spread their efforts more widely. Adobe has found that the demand for marketing content has doubled in the past two years and is expected to increase fivefold in the next two years.

Marketing operations and technologies are rapidly evolving

Future marketing operations technologies will look nothing like those that got us here. In the past year or so, tech has become available that can transform how marketing works end-to-end — particularly for some of the most critical priorities.

Personalized content at scale

• Create endless variations based on colors, textures, and other factors and then use them in e-commerce and other applications.
• Develop insights that allow markets to understand which variations and attributes resonate with customers.
• Automate on-brand copy and develop recommendations that lead to the best outcomes.
• Automate content variation and component design, and resize and adapt content to use across channels.

Omnichannel personalization

• Facilitate one-to-one, real-time customer journeys connected to audience-centric campaigns.
• Consolidate primary engagement channels into a single application, including email, text, push notifications, app notifications, web, and direct mail.
• Run artificial intelligence (AI)-powered experiments — with continuous monitoring — across all systems of engagement and then make real-time decisions.
• Discover missed segmentation opportunities and receive automatic suggestions about audience creation and activation.
• Develop conversational insights to continuously improve audience definitions and refine audience segmentation.

Operations, revenue streams, and workflows

• Increase efficiency through generative AI, which can save employees five hours per week on average — a number that is expected to increase as tools mature and adoption increases.
• Use generative AI to integrate process workflow tools and marketing.
• Create deeper buyer profiles and more sophisticated segmentation.
• Personalize content and unique offers through a real-time customer data platform (CDP).

The technology is here, but CMOs are not taking full advantage of these new capabilities and opportunities. Marketers say they only use one-third of their MarTech, down from 58% in 2020, according to Gartner’s MarTech Report. This often is the result of three factors.

Poor data maturity: Marketers want to use data to gain a 360-degree view of their customers, but just 14% have achieved that goal, according to Gartner. Marketing executives have cited data quality as particularly challenging, but a little more than one-third (37%) have been able to improve their data quality.

Inability to operationalize technology: When adopting new technology, nearly half of marketers (47%) say that cost will be a significant challenge in the next three to five years. At the same time, 90% of marketing executives say that achieving measurable value from new technologies is a challenge to transformation. While money is always a factor, these challenges are less about initial technology licensing costs and more about the internal expertise and change management required to effectively use existing technologies. Marketers are investing in technology to accelerate their maturity. However, they should temper their expectations until they can overcome the data, operational, and cultural barriers.

Fear of getting it wrong: A basic human inclination also holds back many companies. Asana has found that only 39% of marketers are completely confident in their organization's ability to use AI to achieve marketing objectives. And about one-third (35%) of marketers say they are AI “beginners.”

Steps for marketing transformation

Although marketing’s challenges are serious and ever-increasing, they are not insurmountable. CMOs, know they need to transform their marketing organizations and have turned to technology. However, efforts to increase sales or elevate the brand have been held back by their fragmented technical capabilities, risk averse culture, increasing scrutiny to demonstrate business value, and organizational dysfunction (silos, politics, turf wars).

However, CMOs need to push past these limitations to transform their marketing organizations, initiatives, and campaigns at a rapid pace. A full marketing transformation requires new strategies and bold actions. Working with clients, Infosys and WongDoody have found several focus areas that lead to better outcomes.

Talent — Inject a unique blend of expertise in data strategy, technology, MarTech tools, AI, and marketing operations. Marketing organizations need to reskill or upskill current employees if they are not able to find sufficient talent for these needs. Infosys’s Generative AI Radar report found that organizations are more likely to address their needs for this emerging technology through upskilling and reskilling, rather than partnering with vendors or recruiting outside talent. Traditional marketing skills — particularly in creative areas — are still critical for building, growing, or maintaining a brand. But supplementing them with new talents allows marketers to amplify their organization’s impact.

Innovation — Accelerate marketing operations through small-scale experimentation. Marketing leaders can combine rapid releases with A/B testing to more thoroughly understand the value created and compare to more traditional approaches. CMOs can even set up a new testing facility within a marketing organization; install a team of next generation marketers, and technology and transformation partners to put the full MarTech stack to use (sales plus marketing, global plus local).

Leadership — Light a path forward to stronger, sustainable growth. The rest of the C-suite is relying on the CMO to drive growth; this opens an opportunity for marketing leaders to lead. CMOs can demonstrate the power of a radical new approach to marketing by collecting evidence and proving the value rapidly in collaboration with the most engaged parts of the organization. As a result, marketing leaders can find a path through the most risk averse and political environments to rally stakeholders around a shared vision.

CMOs need not expect instant perfection but instead pursue steady and consistent progress. A test and learn approach allows marketing leaders to determine how their legacy marketing organization can evolve into its best version. In an ever-evolving marketing and technical landscape, organizations need to start somewhere and begin to learn what is possible.