4 Critical Skills you Need in your Marketing Team
By: Sodan Selvaretnam, CEO of Chia Ventures, Inc.
In today’s ecommerce market, marketing technology and its application to drive brand and sales is key to long term success. However, many of the clients we talk to say that they have trouble finding and recruiting the right people with the technical and marketing skills to deal with this ever changing landscape. A smart marketing team with the right set of skills can be the CEO’s closest ally and partner. The right people with the right skills developed can effectively lead their company’s data-driven marketing initiatives and technologies to achieve accelerated business growth and increase profits.
So, what are the critical skills you should look for in new candidates, or foster and develop in your current marketing team?
Below we outline 4 skills that an ecommerce company needs in their marketing team.
1. Exercise leadership in emerging competencies that matter.
Data-driven marketing is not a new concept, but for 21st-century businesses, the ever-changing face of marketing technology requires companies, and marketing teams specifically, to demonstrate leadership in the systems and competencies that bolster their growth needs. As a Forbes report noted:
“A majority of executives, 61%, say their data-driven marketing efforts are being led by senior management beyond the marketing departments (business unit VPs, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CEOs and so forth).”
“Companies that are leaders in data-driven marketing have higher levels of involvement from top-level managers, however. For example, a majority, 63%, report their chief marketing officer leads the effort, as compared with only 24% of laggards. At the same time, one out of six leaders have the immediate involvement of their CEOs, compared with a scant 3% of laggards.”
The leadership equation as it relates to the marketing world needs to change, with marketing leaders boldly exercising initiative and engagement in areas of emerging competences like big data with a focus on the customer, if they are to achieve meaningful outcomes and create a viable brand.
2. Exercise leadership and alignment by creating a customer AND data focus tied back to growth and profitability metrics
In my experience, and in the experience of the executives surveyed by Forbes, the most successful businesses in data-driven marketing are those that integrate data at all levels of their organization. Below are some observations, as it relates to the CMO and her/his department.
If the marketing team, as a key champion of the customer, does not take an active role in big-data development, the organization will lag. Tying marketing and content programs as well as new product rollouts to data and tangible business growth and profitability metrics can create increased collaboration and alignment across the organization, with a focus on the customer.
Without deep data analysis to reveal customer usage patterns and interests (among other variables), combined closely with listening closely to what your customers say in on-going conversations, iterative surveys and social media, a company can quickly lose its customer-centric focus, and over time, its relevance in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
Likewise, if different departments manage their own data needs without an eye on the customer, and fail to cross-communicate, the effectiveness of executing a company’s growth and profitability targets will be marginalized.
In a previous assignment, I was asked by the CEO of a private mid-cap company to turn around its digital sales operations and analytics team, which served as a barrier for the larger company’s sales efforts to achieve its’ customers’ adoption of digital products. I decided to focus the efforts of my team and other departments we were working with, on data-driven client satisfaction results; we pinned success to those numbers and tied them back to growth and profitability of the company. This became the lens of all conversations. Using this approach to focus the team and align cross-functionally, we increased the client satisfaction from 60% to near 100% in 180 days. The lesson: using data as a pillar for growth, marketing teams can take that same level of focus and commitment to data tied back to growth and profitability, to effectively exercise leadership across the organization with a focus on the customer.
3. The Mantra: The numbers are your guiding star
Demonstrable results are one of the greatest boons of data-driven marketing. In my experience, I have seen first-hand how statistical, verifiable data-driven decision-making can build and advance sustainable business growth. I have found that this approach also helps gain support and advocacy from CEOs, their Boards of Directors, and investors for key initiatives. Below are two points for marketing teams to pay attention to.
The differences in the use of analytics by laggards and leaders – specifically in the world of data-driven marketing – are strikingly clear. According to the Forbes report mentioned earlier, successful businesses have 79% of marketing staff, 63% of CMOs, 63% of data scientists and 16% of outside agencies actively using analytics. At the other end of the spectrum, in companies that fall behind in data marketing, only 39% of marketing staff, 13% of CMOs, 13% of data scientists/analysts and 13% of outside agencies actively use analytics.
But the exclusive use of technologies that create algorithms and automation doesn’t by itself produce a data-driven marketing organization. A marketing teams effectiveness in today’s market can be unworkable if they believe that outsourced agencies will provide all the necessary data-driven capabilities for their organization. If marketing teams do not do the hard and focussed work with data to build sustainable value for their customers, clients and investors, this view – that outsourced algorithms will create data-driven capabilities – can be a short-sighted and highly risky growth strategy.
Several years ago, before the advent of programmatic media, I led a team that managed advertising network sales. We developed home-grown measurement systems using programs as simple as Excel to measure the effectiveness of various digital advertising networks and bid them against each other. Innovating and customizing the use of data using our own simple hacks, yielded tangible bottom-line results with very low investment. It socialized our entire organization to think in data-driven ways and made our entire organization smarter. As new data sources and technologies emerged, our early efforts put us ahead of the curve when dealing with and evaluating vendors and partners.
4. Adopt a Beginner’s Mind to evolve and adapt
In practice of Zen, the concept of Beginner’s Mind can be applied to achieve a fresh outlook on everything that arrives in the moment, regardless of the practitioner’s past experience. The ego, or self, can cloud or block this fresh, Beginner’s Mind outlook, mainly because people tend to cling to past labels and associations. In fact, ego can block clarity, flexibility and opportunities to learn in the moment. There are many potential lessons here for evolving marketing teams. Below are some potential applications.
The marketing team must keep their beginner’s mind open to all possibilities, and use all the tools at their disposal, to maintain agility and flexibility in their organization – to produce results.
Losing balance during these times and moving into a myopic and defensive mindset can be deadly to achieving outcomes in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Being ready to learn and experiment with everything, and keeping only what works to produce the desired results, is a secret to success.
By taking the approach of an effective fund manager who continually diversifies his portfolio to mitigate risk, the art of effectively managing a portfolio of programs, approaches and partners while maintaining flexibility to quickly adjust will help achieve success for today’s marketing team leaders.
Conclusion
The most important thing for marketers to keep in mind is that there is no single-faceted approach to success in a rapidly evolving marketplace. Effectively using data to grow your business involves leading your entire organization to embrace a data-driven ethos with an agile and open mindset to achieve results.
So, carpe diem, marketers. Your time to thrive has arrived.
If you would like to learn more, send an email to mark@chiaventures.com today.