Today’s headlines read like an obituary to the marketing profession. Recently, a Harvard Business Review (HBR) blog declared Marketing Dead, and countless other tweets and social postings make similar claims. The HBR blog notes three-quarters of today’s CEOs think marketers lack business credibility and are not growth generators. This mix of prognostications and no-confidence votes can be pretty depressing. The good news is that the stories of the death of marketing—both “new” and “old”—are exaggerated. With the right tools, marketers should be able to be more effective than ever before.
First, multichannel marketing remains the most effective tactic for increasing engagement. These channels include new, trendy options and the old standbys, with email, website, social, SEO and content marketing making up the top five (MarketingSherpa 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report).
While much is stated about the ineffectiveness of channels such as email, 81% of marketers tell MarketingSherpa they still use email for lead generation, and 57% say email newsletters are the most effective nurturing tool. Even more interesting are some recent statistics from The Social Habit on the top reasons consumers actually read email from brands. Of survey respondents, 71% said that they were looking for traditional marketing offers like deals and discounts, while 53% wanted to know about new product offerings—old school messages in an old school channel.
“—Marketing’s not dead, it’s evolving like never before!!”
While old standbys like email promos still work, there is no doubt that some of the forces that led HBR to pronounce the death of marketing are real. Social media and buyer empowerment are fundamentally changing the relationship between buyers and sellers, raising expectations higher than ever for the online experience brands deliver. However, as one of the commenters on the HBR blog put it: “[Marketing]'s not Dead, It's Evolving like Never Before!!”
While marketing as a profession is still alive and well, certain marketers who fail to adapt are likely in peril. This is where tools like Sitefinity come into play. When looking at how to ensure the effectiveness of campaigns, and increase the confidence of the C-Suite in marketing’s ability to be “growth generators,” today’s marketers have to be empowered by their content management system. They further need online marketing technologies that enable them to build, test, and optimize online campaigns with little need to look outside the marketing team for support.
Too often marketing is still at the mercy their technology in order to be successful. With the right systems in place, marketing can maximize its effectiveness and demonstrate a measureable impact on the bottom line. To get a glimpse of how Sitefinity will help you get there, check-out our upcoming webinar: “Is Your CMS Holding You Back?” on Thursday, November 29th, 11:00 AM EST.