Recently, Nadia Cameron of CMO Australia spoke to a handful of Chief Marketing Officers about their top new year predictions around data-driven marketing and big data analytics strategy. Mindjet CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff was featured, and gave his insights on real-time data, marketing technology products, and emerging trends.
According to the new ExactTarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing Survey, data and analytics will dominate marketing investments in 2014.
In light of such findings, and the exponential growth in how marketers are utilising big data insights to better their customer intelligence and engagements, we’ve asked five global chief marketing officers (CMO), analytics technology providers and industry analysts to share their views on where the data and analytics spotlight will shine over the next 12 months.
Mindjet CMO, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff: The Year of Operational Reckoning
2014 stands to be a year of reckoning for marketing tech. Even with economic instability, the last few years have been a seller’s boon in the marketing technology world. The converging trends of instantly available real-time data, subscription pricing and the low cost of entry for marketing technology products have seen marketing leaders blowing up the number of technology investments they have made in the past. And so I believe 2014 will bring a renewed focus on marketing’s operations.
I see three emerging trends that will set a strong foundation for marketing innovations well beyond next year:
- The rise of marketing operations: As marketing leaders continue to drive much of the IT spend across companies, 2014 will bring the most clarity we’ve ever seen in the function of marketing operations. The hybrid of process and technology owners living in marketing will firmly secure their leadership seat at the table.
- The actual, practical application of data: Although big data has been all the rage for the past few years, its practical use in marketing has been reserved for those who have invested in data scientists and/or in a substantial technical stack. With products like Lattice Engines, Leadspace, Infer and more showing huge benefits out of the gate for their customers, the applied value of big data has finally become easily attainable for marketing.
- That less is more: The proverbial cup of marketing technology investments has been filled to its peak surface tension. 2014 will be a year of consolidation both on the vendor’s side (acquisitions and mergers) and the buyer’s side (buying more from fewer vendors).
The article also includes predictions from Forrester VP and research director, Michael Barnes; Deloitte CMO, David Redhill; Anametrix President and CEO, Pelin Thorogood; and BlueKai SVP of Marketing, Cory Treffiletti. Read the full article here.