Marketing's Future: Putting A Face To A Name

In a world where consumerisation of technology has made video collaboration more accessible, return to face-to-face and more personalised marketing might be the answer to building trust and managing relationships.Sue Day (pictured) senior director, marketing at Polycom Asia Pacific says adopting video technology in the workplace and in business functions could also "herald the future of marketing for an organisation"."Video collaboration is the new standard in communication and can enable exceptional customer service and support to help win new business and build on existing client and partner relationships," she says.She also suggests that lead generation techniques can be refreshed through more interactive methods such as video-enabled webinars, providing potential customers with instant access to product specialists.While technology may enable us to get back to basics of relationship building, others believe it has also made marketing more of science than art.According to Camille Baumann, regional marketing director at SAS Asia Pacific that transition happened as we grew out of the dot com boom, became experts with content management systems, email marketing, CRM systems and survived the hype of Second Life and MySpace."Today's marketers are expected to be like magicians as they work out ROMI from leveraging Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as well as face the impact of cloud, mobility and big data to address the needs and wants of hyper connected consumers," she says.Yet according to latest IBM "State of Marketing 2012" survey, nearly 60% of marketers indicate that lack of IT alignment and integration is a significant barrier to the adoption of technology.Yuchun Lee former vice president, IBM Enterprise Marketing Management Group says the advent of digital marketing and the impact of technology on the marketing department is driving the need for a harmonious kinship between the CMO and CIO. In a digitalised era, to ensure the right investments are being made, Lee insists that CMO's will need the assistance of the CIO who has a track record of helping usher in successful technology investments in areas such as finance and supply chain."Marketing and IT need to better connect across all layers of the organisation. You can embrace it and lead it or you can wait until a "courtier" is despatched to negotiate you into it," he concludes.