The 3 most important themes for digital marketing leaders

The 3 most important themes for digital marketing leaders

The 3 most important themes for digital marketing leaders

As an organization, you can no longer avoid it: the accelerated transformation to digital. This also applies to the buying process that (potential) customers go through. And that is why this transformation also has an impact on your marketing strategy and agenda. In this blog, we listed the 3 most important themes for you.

What does Gartner say about digital transformation?

Gartner recently wrote an article on 3 key focus areas for CMOs in Digital Marketing. Let’s zoom in on that first.

1.     Continued shift of marketing investments from traditional to digital channels.

Over the past year, many organizations have switched their marketing investments from traditional to digital channels. As a result, the importance of digital within the marketing mix has increased. And this will only increase in the future. Gartner’s research from 2020 even shows that 80% of the marketing budget is now spent on digital.

2.     Digital marketing leadership plays an increasingly important role in overall marketing strategy and objectives.

Almost a logical consequence of the above development is that digital marketing leadership is developing and expanding rapidly in size and responsibilities. Gartner sees this especially with the increasingly important role of digital marketing within the overall marketing strategy and objectives.

3.     36% of digital marketing leaders are CMO

The Gartner Digital Marketing Survey 2021 shows that as many as 36% of digital marketing leaders hold the position of CMO. Overall, even 85% of digital marketing leaders are in the middle management or higher.

Bron: Gartner

Which themes should be at the top of your agenda?

Based on the above research, but of course also our years of experience with digital marketing & marketing technology. We have listed and explained the three most important themes that should be at the top of the agenda of a digital marketing leader.

  1. A renewed focus on gaining new customers
  2. Gain insight into the ROI of (digital) channels
  3. Making technology & personalization scalable

1. A renewed focus on gaining new customers

Do you already have experience with digital marketing? Then the shift to deploying even more digital channels may have gone very naturally for you. But if you are (almost) completely new to the world of digital marketing, then you have heard one new abbreviation after another, as well as the many channels and tools out there. Please don’t be fooled and first of all go to the drawing board. A great framework for this is our roadmap to success.

Within this framework we go through the following 5 steps with our customers:

  1. Determine the objectives
  2. Map the target group (buyer persona)
  3. Content mapping based on the customer journey
  4. Determine the most appropriate channels and tools
  5. Implement the strategy

Finally, perhaps the most important step. Setting up the right measurements, so that you ultimately have the right insights.

By going through these steps you can determine your digital marketing strategy for acquiring new customers (or retaining customers). This also forms the basis for setting up an action plan that suits you.

2. Gain insight into the ROI of (digital) channels

Setting up your strategy is the beginning. But how do you know what is successful and what is not? Which channels contribute to revenue? This question is much more difficult to answer and many experienced marketers also have difficulty with this. What is the ROI (return on investment) of your channels?

When you look from the perspective of traditional marketing, it often happens that the ROI is not transparent and that action is often based on gut feelings. Especially offline marketing activities are very difficult to measure, let alone knowing the ROI. As a digital marketing leader, your position within overall marketing is becoming increasingly important. What makes it even more fun is that you can also demonstrate the ROI (if you measure the right information). So always keep this in mind, when you are setting up digital marketing activities.

3. Making technology & personalization scalable

Finally, the last theme. So if you can provide insight into the ROI, then you want two things:

  1. Improving the ROI

This can of course be done by making sure you spend less but get the same or better results. This time I would like to zoom in on the personalization trend. You can also improve your ROI by aligning the marketing activities you do with the buyer as closely as possible. Therefore you can use personalization techniques, such as:

  • Ads
  • Chatbots
  • Personalization in emails
  • Web personalization

The following applies to all techniques; try to address the customer as much as possible in his/her world of experience. You can do this with the text, the tone of voice and also with images.

  1. Experiment with other channels

Many digital marketing leaders love to try out new tools and channels as well. It can often be difficult to obtain a budget when it’s not clear what the result will be. But the moment you show that you can provide insight into the success of channels and the ROI, it also becomes easier to try out new tools and channels. And so you are even better able to achieve your goals.

Are you curious where you stand compared to your colleagues?

Are you curious where you stand compared to your colleagues? Then join our B2B Marketing Benchmark. And then you will be the first with whom we share the results.