Data-Driven Marketers in High Demand and Short Supply, New Research Finds

The CMO Club and Signal Conduct Study of CMOs and Heads of Marketing from Diverse Industries to Identify List of Must-Have Marketer Attributes

The chief marketing officer of tomorrow is as much a technologist and entrepreneur as she is the source of the Big Idea, according to findings included in a new report, The CMO Club Solution Guide: The Quest for the Perfect Identity-Driven Marketer.

Analyzing responses from CMOs and heads of marketing across a broad range of B2C and B2B brands, The CMO Club and Signal found that more than three-quarters of marketers are responding to surging demand for highly personalized customer experiences by taking steps to implement identity-driven marketing efforts that are contextually relevant and consistent throughout all touchpoints. These findings echo the August 2018 Winterberry Group report Know Your Audience: The Evolution of Identity in a Consumer-Centric Marketplace, which states that US marketers will invest nearly $900 million in 2018 on services and solutions dedicated to solving exclusively for identity — an investment expected to eclipse $2.6 billion in 2022.

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This groundswell is accelerating demand for marketing professionals with the skills and talents to flourish in marketing’s identity-driven future. Marketing innovators of tomorrow must extend their mindset beyond traditional creative thinking to develop a deep understanding of how to leverage technology and data, said the report, which includes insights culled from in-depth interviews with senior marketing leaders from major brands including ASOS, Barnes & Noble, Food Lion, La Quinta, Lee Jeans, Sky Betting & Gaming and Starbucks. “Strategic thinking” and “proven innovation in other fields,” among other characteristics, are also vital to building and executing effective 1:1 customer engagement strategies, experts added.

“In the era of the data-driven marketplace, consumer engagement needs to be faced head-on if brands are to succeed,” said Pete Krainik, CEO and founder of The CMO Club. “Having the right technology and tools are part of a CMO’s job, but how to use those tools to build an effective strategy and team relies heavily on the talent that today’s CMO must possess. This new study we’ve developed reveals the fundamental skills and insights on how CMOs are perfecting their teams with the right mix of creativity and tech-savvy that drives consumer engagement and ultimately increases revenue.”

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But The CMO Club and Signal found a scarcity of professionals with the talents and expertise to drive identity-powered marketing forward. More than half of CMOs are struggling to fill expertise gaps in personalization technologies, the survey found; expertise in measurement and analytics, multi-touch attribution, and media mix optimization is also in short supply, according to 48.9% of respondents.

The complexity of sourcing data-driven talent is compounded by other obstacles facing modern marketing organizations. More than half (51.4%) of CMOs cited “technological integration” among their biggest challenges, with budgetary constraints (61.1%) and data silos (36.1%) also commonplace frustrations.

“Traditionally, marketing departments were siloed into mass marketing and known user marketing, with one side hardly talking to the other. Those divisions no longer make sense,” said Mike Sands, CEO of Signal. “Mass marketing and 1:1 marketing are now the same discipline, and this new survey shows that the CMOs must now borrow the best from both worlds to succeed in today’s environment.”

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