Maybe I'm getting old, but it used to be the case that accusing someone of "not getting it" was the ultimate insult in the marketing community. It was an accusation slung at the ad agencies by the upstart digital pioneers to set themselves apart and portray their competitors as dinosaurs.
So I was a little puzzled when I read that Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua, said at the firm’s user conference earlier this year that the CMO was the primary barrier to marketing automation because they "didn’t get it". This didn't strike me as a comment geared to ingratiate marketeers to the idea of marketing automation, or his company's offering.
So for the sake of balance, I'd like to offer an alternative view.
CMOs do get it - at least the ones we work with do. There are, however a number of challenges that they - and we - face:
- Access to experience and skills to achieve success – the biggest impact marketing automation has is on internal processes which often need considerable re-engineering
- The relationship between the IT department and Marketing can be strained sometimes. You need someone in the mix to successfully bridge the gap
- Marketing automation creates complete transparency on the process and results. For most, this is a blessing, as they are able to prove ROI attributable to marketing. However, for the few this can be an unwelcome spotlight
It's pretty important to understand these challenges and equip yourself to help if you're working with clients to introduce marketing automation into their workflow.
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