Uncovering CMO Insights On Their Journey To Digital Agility

"The path of the journey to digital agility is paved with continuous planning, testing, and integration," says Sylvia Jensen, Senior Director, EMEA Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud. 

She of course is spot on for to be agile is to be continuous, to never resting on any laurels or getting comfortable – ever. "That may sound extreme but in the world we live in today – our always-on and connected digital world – technology is changing faster than ever before," she adds.

Agile Marketing Defined

At Oracle Marketing Cloud we define the term agile marketing as "using data, technology, and processes to build customer experiences that evolve instantly based on the behaviors, interests, and needs of real people – is all about letting customers dictate their own path and have a system that adjusts quickly and intelligently for them across channels in real time and context."

And that system is unquestionably built on an open platform.

Jensen believes the agile Modern Marketing platform must have the agility to integrate third-party applications and data quickly and seamlessly into marketing processes so marketers are not constrained by vendor-specific applications, data silos, and proprietary data sources - all of which provide the optimal customer experience each time, every time.

Survey Says

The findings of a newly-released survey, presented by The CMO Club in partnership with Accelent Consulting and Oracle Marketing Cloud, provides a snapshot of where marketing leaders stand along the path to digital agility.

Key findings include:

• Digital skills are now a basic entry requirement for marketing professionals. 71% of CMOs feel that their teams now have at least “basic digital proficiency”.
• Almost half of CMOs feel that digital marketing has provided a “much enhanced” view of the customer.
• The biggest barrier to marketing digital agility is not having an appropriate technology infrastructure.
• Half of CMOs feel that their traditional and digital marketing is only “somewhat aligned”.
• The top three drivers of digital marketing agility are: (1) enhancing the customer experience (CX), (2) improving competitive position and (3) increasing sales.

While it is true that enhancing the CX is the number one driver of digital marketing agility across the board, the picture changes somewhat when we look at B2B vs. B2C. 

As you can see B2B CMOs place a higher priority on competitive positioning than they do CX as it relates to a driver of digital agility. However, CX comes in higher than Sales, which may surprise some. One theory as to why is that one-to-one selling and individual relationships are a much bigger focus for B2B enterprises, where a single customer can have a significant impact on business performance.

The fact is improving the customer experience is paramount for ANY brand in any industry. 

Next Step

Your next step as a CMO - or any marketer reading this, is to download Digital Agility Survey: CMO Insights on the Journey Towards Digital Agility and get insights directly from your fellow CMOs and marketers as to how they stay agile in our digital world. 

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