Last week’s inaugural MarTech conference brought nearly 400 attendees to a sold-out venue in Boston. The conference showed the progress and potential of a new breed of marketer: the chief marketing technologist.  Our team’s expectations were certainly met. The program included a mix of marketing and tech strategy, how different organizations implement technologies, lessons learned along the way, and growth hacks for making it all work. 

“Marketing is now, as it has always been, an art form. But the next generation of marketers understands it can be so much more. These innovators are rewriting what is possible when the art and science of marketing collide.” —Paul Roetzer (@paulroetzer), from The Marketing Performance Blueprint  The marketing industry continues to transform at an unprecedented rate. The result?  Growing gaps in marketing talent, technology and strategy. As Dan Lyons (@realdanlyons) reported from Adobe’s 2014 summit for digital marketers: “Adobe claims that 60% of marketers expect their role to change in the next year, and 40% believe they need to reinvent themselves, but only 14% actually know how to do it.” The future of your business—and your marketing career—depends on your ability to continually adapt. The Marketing Performance Blueprint presents the processes, technologies, and strategies needed to fill marketing gaps and build performance-driven organizations. Step by step, the book shows how to tap into a scientific approach to marketing that can help steer organizations to advance their businesses, exceed ROI expectations, and outperform the competition. “If you think that marketing is about out-spending and shouting louder than your competition, then The Marketing Performance Blueprint is for you. Roetzer does a phenomenal job of demonstrating the power of just how much marketing, strategy and technology has changed to make brands so much more efficient. If you’re still worrying about likes, friends and followers and not working on the true performance of your marketing spend, you really need to read this book and deploy the thinking of it in your organization. Now.” — Mitch Joel (@mitchjoel), President, Twist Image, and Author, Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete                 The Marketing Performance Blueprint, At A Glance.  At its core, The Marketing Performance Blueprint is a story about the convergence of marketing talent, technology and strategy. Its ten chapters follow the shift in the digital marketing transformation—across talent, technology and performance—then walk readers through a game plan for digital strategy that adapts with the latest. Section I: The Backstory Chapter 1: Mind the Gaps Chapter 2: Commit to Digital Transformation Section II: Marketing Talent Chapter 3: Build a Modern Marketing Team Chapter 4: Construct an Internal Marketing Academy Chapter 5: Propel Growth through Agency Partners Section III: Marketing Technology Chapter 6: Create a Connected Customer Experience Chapter 7: Manage the Marketing Technology Matrix  Section IV: Marketing Strategy Chapter 8: Perform a Marketing Assessment Chapter 9: Develop a Marketing Scorecard Chapter 10: Strategize a Marketing Game Plan  For more on each chapter, and how your organization can drive growth, review the full chapter summaries here                      Download Your Free Chapter: Commit to a Digital Transformation To preview what you’ll find within the book, download a free copy of chapter 2—“Commit to Digital Transformation.” Within the chapter, Roetzer discusses the digital transformation imperative, and considers opportunities to overcome the challenges businesses of all sizes face. With the right digital transformation, marketing is intelligent, measureable, and powerful. Purchase your copy of The Marketing Performance Blueprint on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or 800CEOread.           

Accenture’s latest CMO Insight Survey, CMOs: Time for Digital Transformation, or Risk Being Left on the Sidelines, reminds us that we’re in the midst of a digital transformation.

Digital marketing budgets continue to rise. From Gartner’s Digital Marketing Budgets Increase, Reflecting Focus on Customer Experience report: “digital marketing budgets will rise by 10% in 2014 following a double-digit percentage increase the prior year.” The largest increases were reported in digital or online advertising, mobile, ecommerce, and the corporate website. This was the Gartner digital team’s second annual report. (We recapped the first here: U.S. Digital Marketing Spend to Increase 9% in 2013.) For context, 2014 findings were based responses from 285 individuals (located in the U.S.) responding on behalf of their entire organizations. Respondents’ average company revenue was $4.4 billion. 

When the PR 20/20 team evaluated Marketing Score assessment responses from more than 300 marketers, executives and entrepreneurs at the end of last year, Business Cores and Marketing Cores led as highest rated sections, at 63% and 56% respectively. 

Marketing Tech Meta-Trends from Scott Brinker This post recaps Scott Brinker’s (@chiefmartec) latest short book, A NEW BRAND OF MARKETING: The 7 Meta-Trends of Modern Marketing as a Technology-Powered Discipline, a quick and important read for the modern marketer.

Earlier this month, CMO Club and Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud released a report that identifies 5 key priorities for CMOs, Bridging the Digital Divide: How CMOs Can Rise to Meet Five Expanding Expectations. Findings were based on a survey of 228 global marketing leaders, conducted by Deloitte.

How are marketers approaching marketing automation technologies? And what types of trends and options affect their decisions?

3 Tips to Better Align Marketing Budget & Revenue Growth Goals One of the most fascinating slides (in my opinion) within The 2014 Marketing Score Report, tells the tale of an inverse relationship between marketing budget and revenue goals. 

The latest in digital technology enables marketers to measure performance across all activities. Yet, it's become a daunting task rather than an opportunity to continually assess and evolve strategies. According to Adobe’s Digital Distress report, 76% of marketers believe measurement is important, yet only 29% believe they are doing it well.