There is a two-sided phenomenon happening in business today - marketers have more solutions available to them, but they are selecting a number of solutions that need to be integrated and growing the number of vendors that they need to manage.
This, according to DNN Director of Content Marketing Dennis Shiao can be seen in the findings of his company's recently released study, "Marketing Got Complicated: Challenges (and Opportunities) for Marketers at Mid-Size Companies."
The study, which questioned more than 300 marketing executives at U.S. companies during February 2014, found that more than half of respondents (53 percent) use five or more discrete marketing technology solutions such as marketing automation software, CRM, email marketing and social media tools, etc. Fifteen percent use a whopping 10 or more different technologies for their daily work activities.
Clearly, the job of the marketer is becoming more complex with 59 percent of respondents indicating they need a "mini" CIO (chief information officer).
Due to this complexity, Shiao advises companies to hire smart - starting with a detailed job description. Additionally, he recommends that, since many medium-sized companies can't afford (time or money) to have a full-time marketing automation (MA) person, for example, to appoint a primary and secondary MA person. This also provides assurance that if one person leaves, the other can fill his or her shoes.
Shiao also recommends deploying integrated technology suites to decrease the complexity of having disparate systems. More findings from the study can be found in the infographic below.