Marketers need to speak C-suite to drive tech investment: Squiz

Selling the value of marketing technology to the C-suite can only work if marketers speak the language of the boardroom, according to the 2017 State of Marketing Tech report released by digital transformation company Squiz.

There is a disconnect between marketers and the C-suite, the report says, as only 35 percent of marketers surveyed think that their CEOs strongly realise the potential revenue uplift and saving of martech investment. Furthermore, the marketers said that only 47 percent of the C-suite outside of their department use some marketing technology in their roles.

In contrast, 97 percent of the marketers said martech has helped their department to become more strategic and another 43 percent said they were able to develop more data-driven KPIs from the investment.

The findings were based on a survey carried out by Morar research of 600 UK, US and Australian senior marketers from companies of 500+ employees in January this year. The report noted that investment in the CMS and CRM platforms increased by 83 percent and 62 percent respectively last year, with 61 percent as additions to the existing stack while 31 percent was new. 

Australia was singled out as being slower to adopt martech. Fifty-one percent of their investments had not been in place before, compared to US (15 percent) and UK (26 percent).

In a statement, Neil Davis, managing director UK and Europe at Squiz said: “Our research highlights that digital has a firm place in the boardroom. However as martech is being used by the rest of the business, marketers need to be more confident that its value is being communicated."

Hence, the report calls on marketers to develop a closer relationship with the C-suite and especially the chief executive. Only 27 percent of the marketers said their team is working closely with the CEO.  Instead, marketers are most closely aligned with the CTO (52 percent) followed by CIO (27 percent).

With stakeholder buy-in still a challenge for 32 percent of the marketers, Davis said marketers must take the conversation to the next level and prove that martech can be used to drive growth across the entire organisation.

“Marketers have realised the importance of martech for solving many of their challenges. The ability to be a more strategic marketing department means investment in technology has sky-rocketed," said Davis.