IT training: a new necessity for marketers

Marketing is all about the right message, to the right target group, via the right channel, at the right time. For this, insight into the customer journey is of great importance: what information does the customer need in this phase of the service or purchasing process? You need a lot of data to properly align information with the customer - personalization. The more marketing is about data, the more important knowledge of IT becomes for you as a marketer.

Everything is online nowadays. As a marketer of today you must fully understand Facebook and Google and be able to use them optimally. SEO (search engine optimization) and SEA (advertising in Google) can be easily mastered, and many older marketers have done so over time. New marketers or young marketers would do well to some Google training to follow, because that is just the beginning.

Big data and the customer journey

In recent years, products have increasingly been transformed into services. CDs have been replaced by Spotify and the video store around the corner for Netflix. As a result of this development, the IT department is no longer just a cost item for companies, but a business enabler that helps determine the success of the service.

Big data offers enormous opportunities to optimize the customer experience. Linking different channels (Facebook, Google, e-mail, advertising) and databases (sales, customer service, purchasing, financial administration) make it possible to map the customer journey in detail. It is about matching external signals and internal facts. When and through which channels does the customer make contact? What triggers the customer to the next phase of the purchase or service process? Which content interests the customer the most? Where does the customer drop out? To turn all this data into an effective marketing strategy, you can use various tools as a marketer. Put some of these tools machine learning in: self-learning algorithms that train themselves in recognizing customer behavior patterns and changes. For example, algorithms can analyze digital body language and respond directly to it.

Wanted: technical marketer with IT knowledge

Data driven marketing has the future and therefore a marketer cannot do without IT knowledge. It is very important to delve into this as a marketer. If you do not do that, you give marketers a competitive edge at the competitor, who keep their IT skills up-to-date. The better you understand the functionalities of your data analysis tools and applications, the better you can use them to set up a campaign.

For example, IT knowledge makes it easier to choose the right tools and use them optimally. Not only the ease of use of the applications matters, but also the compatibility with existing systems and software, data security and the possibility for data backups and recoveries are important. In addition, if you have some knowledge of coding - in particular HTML and CSS - you can solve minor problems with, for example, web applications. Technical marketers can tackle technical SEO problems and adjust things such as, for example robots.txt, sitemaps.xml, Google tag manager, Facebook pixel, language tags and schematic markup.

Together forward with the IT department

The biggest advantage of IT knowledge is that it simplifies communication with the IT department. You can transfer your ideas in the IT language and know where there are potential bottlenecks in the implementation of your plan. Of course you want to realize your ideas as quickly as possible to stay ahead of the competition, but that is not always possible in terms of IT infrastructure. For example, companies have to deal with a legacy: old systems that must constantly be adapted to new technologies.

Also, linking all data is not a matter of course through so-called stand-alone systems that hold data instead of integrating it. If you as a marketer have knowledge of these systems, then you understand that it is not unintentionally that the IT department sells you a "no". Adjustments simply take time: a new e-business architecture takes many months to set up. You can think of this here marketing strategy take this into account and come up with creative solutions that pleasantly surprise both yourself and customers. Because as IT now focuses on business, the marketer focuses exclusively on the customer. All that technical hassle internally must be arranged. As a marketer you now also have responsibility for that.