After reading my recent blog for Evolved Media, The Top Four Reasons Modern Marketers Can’t Live Without IT Research, my wife the advertising executive asked if I was talking about CMOs in general or specifically specifically about marketers at B2B tech companies. I was forced to admit that I conflated the two audiences for expediency’s sake. That said, both audiences need IT research.
CMOs at technology vendors have long been users of analyst firms. Yet, spending on marketing technology is increasing at rapid clip. As such, CMOs in all industries are becoming buyers of technology and need research tools to help evaluate vendors and advise on software purchases. And since they are not sophisticated technology buyers, marketers will often need more rather than less help when buying marketing technology.
In order to understand how marketers could use IT advisory services, I started by looking at the professional as a whole and then looked at the B2B tech marketing function that I am more familiar. Finally, I did a reviewed the robust debate about how marketing changing role affects IT professionals. Included below are some of the more valuable readings I came across while researching the aforementioned blog post:
Changing Role for Marketing: Marketers are becoming more responsible for customer engagement and require more analytic skills.
- The Growth CMO: Personas and Potential
- The new market for marketers by Sarah Hodges
- Marketing’s Transformation Is Far From Finished, New Study Says by Jeff Pundyk
B2B Tech Marketing: IT buyers are notoriously hard to reach and finicky about their sources of information.
- Free Resources for Marketing Professionals by IDG Research Services
- The Eccolo Media B2B Technology Content Survey
- B2B Buyers Don’t Trust Vendors’ Online Content: CMO Council by David Gardner
CIO and CMO: Marketers have different needs but can benefit from IT’s vendor procurement experience. IT should support the infrastructure so business units can implement marketing technology independently.
- The CMO is not replacing the CIO and here’s why by Tim Crawford (thank you for the chart used in this post’s thumbnail)
- Getting the CMO and CIO to work as partners by Matt Ariker, Martin Harrysson and Jesko Perrey
- The CMO And The CIO Getting Closer by Jack Loechner