2010: The Year of Marketing Transformation

We believe that 2010 will be a year of transformation for marketing.

Funding for marketing has dropped to a point where we are concerned about its health, relevance and impact. Services’ marketing budgets are at all-time low: 0.8% of revenue in 2009 and 0.9% of revenue forecasted for 2010. What is the perception of marketing in the organization today? Even if marketing is not yet marginal, it will be soon if funding continues this way.

Something has to change. Otherwise, marketing’s stature and impact on the business will continue to be under siege through the recovery and beyond.

Even though 43% of our members forecast a marketing budget increase in 2010, that still leaves nearly 60% whose budgets are flat or still declining. In this kind of environment, most marketers can’t add anything on to what they’re already doing and can’t go back to doing things the way they did before the downturn.

Budgets Aren’t the Only Drivers

Budgets aren’t the only drivers behind the need for marketing transformation, however. Buyer behavior continues to shape and change marketing. Customers have steadily gained more power in the buying process as their access to information has improved, thanks to the internet and social media. This, combined with a nearly continuous atmosphere of cost cutting since the dot-com bust, has made buyers more demanding, selective, and value conscious.

Buyers want more than information today. Telling them about products and services isn’t enough. They are looking for insight and ideas. Marketers have shifted money into creating white papers, Web briefings, private briefings, and the like to try to meet that demand. But ITSMA research has consistently shown that at least 50% of buyers view the content they receive as ineffective in helping them identify and solve business problems.

Technical Changes Drive the Transformation

Technology will also have a big impact on marketing transformation in three ways. First, technologies such as social networking are pushing marketers away from the traditional emphasis on controlled messaging to a more collaborative, dialogue-based relationship with customers, prospects, and influencers.

Second, technology is also changing how we manage and measure marketing activities and integrate with sales. Companies are moving off spreadsheets and leveraging more automated marketing tools for integrating their lead-nurturing efforts with customer relationship management systems to create a closed-loop lead-management process.

Finally, as cloud computing takes hold, it will change how we go to market. For example, there will likely be more partnerships among companies as a cloud ecosystem develops and creates more dependencies among providers offering different pieces of the cloud ecosystem, such as applications that are based on the cloud infrastructure. The cloud will have a profound impact on how you deliver your products and services, what offerings you develop, what companies you partner with, and who you compete with. It will impact marketing as well as, as it becomes a place where marketing services and marketing systems live.

We see three major areas where transformation is necessary for marketers:

• Marketers must create a new content development and dissemination engine.
• That engine should be supported by an automated, integrated closed-loop lead management process.
• Marketers must create a fact-based decision culture supported by analytics.

To see how we recommend tackling the coming transformation, download this free PDF.

ITSMA members can hear these recommendations explained in detail by ITSMA’s Dave Munn and Julie Schwartz by listening to the playback of our Online Briefing: ITSMA’s 2010 State of the Profession Address.

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ITSMA specializes in helping companies market and sell services and solutions more effectively. We work with the world's leading technology, communications, and professional services providers to generate increased demand, strengthen customer relationships, and improve brand differentiation. ITSMA annual program clients include business leaders such as Avaya, BT, Cisco, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and Tata Consultancy Services, among others. Our comprehensive research, consulting, and training on topics including ITSMA Account-Based Marketing℠, Brand Positioning, and Solutions Development provide the insight and experience companies need to improve business results. ITSMA is based near Boston, and has offices in London and Tokyo. Learn more at www.itsma.com.