Why CMOs Are Investing in Technology

When deciding where to spend your 2019 marketing budget, make sure you’re taking technology into account.

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According to Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2018–2019, marketing technology took a hefty chunk of 2018’s marketing budget. In fact, almost a third of expenditure was spent on marketing tech. As we head into the new year, you’re probably looking at your own budget and making decisions of where to most effectively spend money. So, why are CMOs so interested in investing in technology?

It saves time: Marketing technology often has to do with automation. Whether you’re implementing a chatbot service, upgrading your e-mail marketing provider, or utilizing a Customer Relationship Manager, marketing technology allows you to automate more of your processes. For instance, instead of sitting down and posting directly to social media every day, you can batch work in advance to save time and make your posts more curated. Having auto-responders through your e-mail provider allows you to weed out clients who aren’t a great fit earlier on in your process. When you aren’t spending time every day dealing directly with customers, you’re able to get more done.

It makes things measurable: Marketing efforts can be notoriously hard to measure. But marketing technology allows you to more efficiently track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and understand analytics that will help you create a more data-driven strategy. Marketing technology helps you learn vital information about your customer while he or she is responding to your product.

It gives testing ability: Nobody likes to waste money. By utilizing A/B testing for everything from webpage copy to e-mail funnels, marketing technology allows you to see what’s working and what isn’t. That will make strategizing much easier and allow you to craft a marketing strategy with a higher profit result. Technology allows you to stop going into launches blind and start being backed by data that will give you a brighter flashlight into what people will respond to.

It helps you get the word out: If you’re a modern-day marketer, you know the old school marketing formula of print ads and networking events probably isn’t the best strategy for most industries. Marketing technology allows you to embrace modern day marketing efforts, like virtual reality, geocaching, and voice tech, in order to further spread the word about your products and services.

As you set your marketing budget for the new year, make sure you do a quick technology audit and see the ways in which your business is utilizing marketing tech. If it’s less than the average, now is the perfect time to think of a few ways you might want to experiment in 2019.