The Marketing Performance Blueprint

The marketing industry is evolving at a faster rate than ever before and modern businesses are struggling to keep up.

With The Marketing Performance Blueprint, PR 20/20's Paul Roetzer aims to close the gap between rapid marketing innovation and the results that businesses get from their marketing efforts. Actually, there are four specific gaps in marketing that need attention:

There are four specific gaps in marketing that Roetzer believes need attention:

1. Talent
2. Technology
3. Strategy
4. Performance

Marketers face increasing pressure to measure the ROI of their efforts, and sadly, they are largely underperforming in all four of these areas.

Traditionally, marketing has been viewed as an art form that requires creativity. However, modern marketing is a combination of art and science.

Marketing is still a creative endeavor, but performance can only be measured and improved scientifically. This increases the role of science in marketing to a level much higher than we’ve ever seen.

Connecting the art and science of marketing is just one of the challenges that businesses are failing to overcome.

The Marketing Performance Blueprint outlines the fundamental mistakes that businesses are making with digital marketing and provides a clear path to improving those areas.

The goal is to build performance-driven organizations that no longer have to rely on guessing to figure out what’s working in their marketing mix.

It all starts with the people that are responsible for your marketing in the first place.

The Marketing Talent Gap

The evolution of digital marketing has completely changed the portfolio of skill sets required from a great marketer. Rather than hiring people that are experts in one area, companies need hybrid marketers with expertise in a variety of areas.

According to the research cited by Roetzer, 96% of marketers feel the breadth of skills needed to succeed has increased dramatically and 44% of marketing leaders say they cannot find the right combination of people and skills in the job market.

One of the primary factors in this problem is that young marketers simply aren’t being educated for digital marketing.

In fact, of the top 10 undergraduate marketing programs in the U.S., only one requires a digital marketing course. Admittedly, 75% of marketers say their lack of skills is impacting revenues in some way.

The demand for tech-savvy and self-taught marketers is at an increasing all-time high, but holding on to them is difficult because of their value in the marketplace.

According to Roetzer, 90% of companies lack the necessary digital skills in key areas of social media, mobile, process automation, and performance modeling and analysis. 

In addition, 71% of CMOs feel underprepared to manage the data explosion.

Surprisingly, only 28% of enterprises plan to introduce a formal training program to improve digital marketing skills, however, given that 4% of companies ensured their training efforts were aligned with their overall digital strategy, it’s a positive sign that over a quarter of companies are ready to make a change.

Since companies are struggling to hire the right people and there is a lack of education and training.

CMOs are outsourcing 45-75% of marketing activities and are generally more satisfied with areas managed by external forces. Inbound Marketing agencies are filling the void and doing a great job at it.

Until your company can recruit and/or train hybrid marketers, your best bet is to outsource the work to experts that already have the experience you seek.

In the meantime, your company could likely benefit from the development of digital marketing training programs.

The Marketing Technology Gap

Traditional marketers aren’t cut out for the digital world. According to Roetzer, 90% of daily media interactions are screen-based, occurring on smartphones, PC’s, tablets, or televisions.

That leaves the remaining 10% to newspapers, magazines, direct mail, billboards, radio, and so on. Marketers that haven’t adapted to technology are fighting for crumbs.

To put in perspective how quickly technology is advancing, Roetzer cites research that found 90% of all the data in the world is less than two years old.

It’s no surprise that 63% of marketers felt the pace of change in their organization was too slow. Even the savviest of marketers are challenged regularly to stay up-to-date.

However, while changes in technology present new challenges, they also provide convenient solutions. Much of the Inbound Marketing process is completely automated, allowing businesses to convert more leads with fewer resources.

Without a digital marketing strategy, most leads will likely avoid your brand altogether. B2B buyers prefer to do their own research by searching your brand in Google and by consuming the free content you offer. In most cases, B2B buyers may be up to 90% through the buying cycle before contacting a vendor.

Ignoring digital marketing is basically ignoring 90% of your potential customers in the digital age.

The Marketing Strategy Gap

Current marketing strategies fail the match the ambition of marketers. According to Roetzer, 41% of marketers have aggressive growth goals, but only 5% have aggressive marketing budgets. Although Inbound Marketing is significantly more cost-effective than traditional marketing, the results aren’t as powerful when you have to cut corners.

However, tight budgets aren’t the only issue facing marketing strategists -- most marketers say they don’t know what’s coming next. When asked, “what will be the most important to marketers in the next three years?” 13% of marketers say social media marketing and 12% say personalization and targeting.

Misguided efforts lead to poor strategy. Your marketing team has to figure out which channels are bringing the highest ROI and which tactics aren’t performing well. Before you can predict future trends you have to have a full understanding of what’s working right now.

The Marketing Performance Gap

Gaps in talent, technology, and strategy have created the performance gap -- unfortunately, the biggest gap of them all. As much as companies are gaining from their digital marketing efforts, they are only seeing a fraction of their potential results.

Shockingly, only 9% of CEOs and 6% of CFOs are using marketing data to help set corporate direction.

Even with all of the advanced analytics, a CRM could research and the simplified reports they can create -- less than 1 out of 10 businesses consult their marketing data before adjusting corporate direction.

Most companies don’t even know how well their marketing is performing. According to the research cited by Roetzer, only 9% of marketers know their digital marketing is working. Although, 76% of marketers believe that measurement is important -- only 29% believe they are doing it well.

If your marketing isn’t reaching its full potential, you probably have some gaps that need closed. At the very least, you need help measuring your marketing performance.

By following The Marketing Performance Blueprint, you’ll have the bullet-proof marketing system that attracts new customers to your brand 24/7.