Challenges and Opportunities Facing Marketers at Mid-Sized Companies

This week, we released a research report titled "Marketing Got Complicated: Challenges (and Opportunities) for Marketers at Mid-Sized Companies." Our report was based on a survey (conducted in February 2014) of 300 marketers at mid-sized companies.

In short, marketing got complicated. But not to worry. There are plenty of opportunities for "mid-size marketers" to capitalize on. In this post, I'll highlight these opportunities by sharing some of the commentary we've received about the report.

Media Coverage

CMSWire's Barry Levine covered our report in an article titled "DNN Finds Marketing Tools Easy to Use, Hard to Integrate." As noted by Levin in his article, our research found that 59% of "mid-sized marketers" need a "mini-CIO" to help them integrate their marketing technologies.

MarketingProfs' Ayaz Nanji covered our report in an article titled "Marketers Feel Overwhelmed by Number of Technology Vendors." This article has been widely shared on social media. Based on commentary included in tweets, it seems that marketers can certainly associate with the report's findings.

CMO.com's Giselle Abramovich published an article titled "Marketers Need To Get Their Priorities Straight, Study Finds." Our CEO (Navin Nagiah) often speaks of the need for marketers to ruthless prioritize. In the article, Abramovich quotes Nagiah as saying, “Everything is possible, and yet nothing is practical.”

In an article titled "The Struggle: Too Much Information, Too Many Solutions," Karl Greenberg writes about the challenges facing marketers at mid-sized companies: TMC (too many choices and channels) and TMS (too many solutions). Greenberg relays advice from Nagiah, who notes that mid-sized companies need to hire well-rounded marketers, rather than marketing specialists.

Sandra Zoratti, CMO, The Marketer Network and author of Precision Marketing, published a blog post titled "Is it time to Simplify Marketing? Moving Beyond Content Shock to Connect and Engage." 

Sandra happens to be a marketer at a mid-sized company, so she feels the challenges and sees the opportunity. She's "still driven by the instinct to help our brands succeed by connecting with our customers to improve their lives." 

We're hosting a live webinar and are thrilled to have Sandra be part of our expert panel. We hope you can join us.

Our Own Thoughts

Navin Nagiah, our CEO, published a post at LinkedIn to share his thoughts. Navin titled his piece "72% Of Marketers Can’t Find Their Target Audience Online – Can You?" In addition to ruthless prioritizing, Navin recommends that mid-sized marketers dive deeper into online branded communities and favor content quality (and value) over quantity.

I wrote a post for Craig Rosenberg's Funnelholic blog titled "5 Ways for Marketers at Mid-Sized Companies to Survive (and Thrive)." I compared mid-sized marketers to Billy Beane's Oakland A's and provided a set of recommendations on how they can thrive in today's world. My tips included intelligent use of analytics, hiring well and marketing yourself internally.

Carter Hostelley (CEO, Leadtail) shared his analysis of the report with a post on our blog titled "Why Mid-Size Marketers Still Have Big Challenges Ahead [New Report]."

Because marketers are having a hard time finding customers, keeping customers and building brand, Hostelley notes that "online communities may be an area that senior marketers should consider as a strategic investment of time and money."

Conclusion

Sure, marketing is challenging and complicated. For me, it's never been more exciting. We can track and measure everything, which means that decisions are based on data, rather than "what feels right." In addition, we can craft scenarios, test them out, then use data to determine the scenario that works best. Fun stuff.

Hear from a Marketing Expert

An Interview with Sandra Zoratti: Top Marketing Blogs, Work-Life Balance and More