‘Marketecture’ 101: The Core Four

Digital transformation in marketing demands a new set of skills. CMOs need to become ‘marketecturers’ who can harness on and offline data to deliver always-on, seamless brand experiences.

As anyone working in marketing knows, our industry is undergoing a period of rapid, wholesale change brought on by the advent of digital technologies. Our customers are more connected and engaged, and the competitive environment is fiercer than ever. As a result, we don’t have the luxury of pushing out campaign after campaign; we need to find the customer wherever they are in their buying journey and engage them with real-time conversations that relate to them as individuals.

I think most would agree: this is a sea change in marketing practices. First, we had the traditional marketer, then the database marketer, and next the digital marketer. Now we must evolve into customer-experience marketers. And that means going through a change that will see us transform into a technology, data, and design-driven function with the goal of delighting customers through seamless experiences.

Digital transformation in marketing calls for a new technology stack—a “marketecture,” if you will. To be fit for purpose, digital “marketecturers” need to be able to harness on and offline data to deliver an always-on, seamless brand experience.

And it’s clear that measurement must lie at the core of this new approach, as the ability of marketing organisations to conduct in-flight measurement will allow us to optimise our budgets at a time when we’re being asked to do more with less.

The Key To A Successful Transformation

The starting point for CMOs is a transformational plan that has the buy-in of the entire business. Here are four core considerations CMOs must bring to their digital journeys:

1. Put in place a realistic roadmap. You need to have a detailed roadmap of what you want to achieve in year one of their transformation. This comes down to defining what you want the customer’s brand experience to be, and then working out the best way to deliver it. You also need to have a vision for where you see your transformations progressing over years two and three. However, this must be a flexible vision, as the market will change and marketing priorities will shift. You and your organisation, therefore, need to be highly adaptable and agile.

2. Identify your strategic core. As you digitise your marketing function, you’ll find you’ve a plethora of new skills and processes you need to incorporate into your operations. It’s up to you to decide which tasks are strategically core to the business and should be operated in-house and which can be successfully outsourced. With the latter, you’ll find you can cut a lot of fat from their organisations and benefit from a more agile core team.

3. Ensure adequate funding is in place. There’s a cost involved in digital transformation, and you’ll no doubt have to take a business case to the board. When structuring the business case, the priority should be on highlighting the long-term cost efficiencies that digital enables, given the fact that, in a dynamic environment, it’s difficult to successfully build a business case around revenue generation. Of course, any business case must also reflect that there is an overriding case for change: organisations need to transform to stay competitive. If your marketing organisation sticks with a traditional approach of planning and executing silo campaigns, you’ll quickly find you’re unable to compete.

4. Get the right skills in place. The skills required for marketing professionals have already changed and will continue to do so. Some businesses try and transform simply by giving new job titles to the same old team. This won’t work. For digitised marketing, you need people who are comfortable with numbers and with technology. You need people who can both analyse and empathise; people who can understand what data is telling them, but also understand the need for emotional engagement. Finally, you need to be willing to constantly push boundaries. If your organisation is not constantly looking to do things in new ways, it will get left behind.

Over the next few years, we are going to see new winners and losers emerge across all industries. Your ability to adopt a modern, data-driven, customer-centric approach to brand engagement will play an important role in deciding which category you fall into.

The scale of change is big, but, as I have shown, it need not be daunting. By building a solid cost-focused business plan, centring the technology roadmap firmly on enabling seamless brand experiences, and being practical and flexible throughout the transformation period, your marketing organisation can thrive in the digital world. My advice to you is to act fast—start building that business case today, as digital transformation is steaming ahead.

This is part of a series of articles by Accenture Interactive Leadership looking at key issues facing marketers in a digital age. As an introduction to the series, CMO.com spoke with Joy Bhattacharya, Accenture Interactive managing director for the UK & Ireland. Read more here.