Marketing and IT Smackdown!!!

From simple Web sites and e-mail marketing to social media, CRM and viral YouTube videos, if you are a marketer, you are facing the fact that your major marketing vehicles are in the hands of an IT department that often doesn’t even speak the same language you do. Usually they have a very different culture. Often they even work in a different state.

Every day, decisions are made in IT that affect marketing. When purchasing a new software package, their focus is on efficiency, robust technology, or transactions per minute. When you ask “But can I embed a video?” or “How easy will it be for me to do a survey?” they will say “Yeah, yeah, it can do all that,” followed by a lot of what sounds to you like gobbledygook.

And then you find out that they went ahead with an iPhone app for online reservations, when a key customer of yours doesn’t use the iPhone. “Not only that,” you think, “but when something’s developed for an iPhone, it has an effect on brand image. So, shouldn’t we (marketing) have been more integral to that decision?”

You can see how this could turn into a smackdown.

Before you go buy a pair of those really cool wrestling boots (and the cape, of course), try making a concerted effort to bridge the communication gap. To be more productive I recommend taking the first step yourself. You already have the beginnings of a dialogue: they have something you need (information about technical stuff) and you have something they crave (why do you think they made that iPhone app? They want a share of the coolness that you – marketing – have). Chances are you will find people more than willing to share their knowledge once you show an interest. All you have to do is pick the best teacher.

If you need more motivation, remind yourself of how few people there are who can speak both the language of marketing and of technology. Those people are going to be more and more valuable, both to your current organization and to other organizations in the future. After all, job security is a good motivator.

Tags: CRM, email marketing, iPhone app, Marketing, social media, viral video

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Marketing, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.