Description:

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2007 is shaping up to be a good year for marketing. According to new ITSMA research, marketing budgets are on the rise, the job market for marketers is heating up, and services gross margins are continuing to improve.

But despite recent gains, only one-third of marketers feel they have a significant impact on the business.

To have a bigger impact on the business, marketers must become a more strategic partner to:

• Business Leadership—ITSMA research has shown that marketers with more strategic responsibilities, such as offer development, portfolio management, and charting business strategy, have a greater impact on the business. Marketers need to step up in these areas to win a seat at the table.
• Sales—The typical approach to marketing-sales alignment emphasizes getting marketing closer to sales through initiatives such as tighter alignment of marketing activities with the sales cycle, better coordination around demand gen, and giving sales more input into marketing programs and materials. But dramatic shifts in the nature of customers, competitors, offerings, and market influencers are placing new demands on both marketing and sales organizations, and both sides need to collaborate on new, shared priorities if they hope to succeed.
• Customers—Traditionally, marketing has focused primarily on promotion, providing indirect value to customers. To truly engage today's customers, marketers must focus more on delivering value to them through thought leadership content, peer networking communities, seminars, briefings, and other activities.