Amid seismic shifts in technology and the macro economy, it’s my view that at least 3 other gaps are emerging between marketing leaders.

• Accountability gap. Possibly the most important gap among marketers. Marketers increasingly get to test, tinker, and directly associate their work with customer acquisition, revenue, and profitability. Now, I’ve had more than one ad agency veteran tell me it’s not OK for an ad, event, or website to be judged on direct revenue it generates. This thinking is common among marketers. But those who are proficient with metrics, analysis, and accountability for ROI are increasingly prized.

• Technology gap. New technologies enable a right-now measurement discipline which was formerly the domain of direct response advertising. Not just social media, but mobile marketing, search engine marketing, internet analytics, marketing automation. Tactical savvy in these technologies can be game changing. A haves and have-nots gap is increasing between those who learn the new tools of the trade and those who don’t.

• Mindset gap. Old mindset: do I think I can control the message in a one-way brainwashing effort toward my audience?  New mindset: can I engage markets and individuals in 2-way conversations that I influence but cannot control?  This also includes the relationship between marketing and sales, not just marketing and the customer. The new mindset doesn’t win in every market, but it’s becoming more important to be flexible in thinking about the role of the marketing messenger.

Marketing has always been about revenue generation. More & more, marketers get to drive activities that actually can be proven to generate revenue. It’s a good place to be.

Related posts:

1. Relationships vs. Markets: 5 differences between sales and marketing
2. Add these distractions to Marketing’s not-to-do list
3. To know us is to love us – right?
4. Marketers: under pressure for ROI? How to find accountability mentors.
5. Who are we talking with, anyway?

That’s an easy target.

What I like is his description of who is changing.

He describes an actual target market that a marketer can begin to get to know and flush out through sales-related communications as well as corporate positioning.

Why?

It isn’t “people in [Department] with [Job title] at companies with revenue between $[X] and $[Y] million, whose [CMO] is [40] or younger, headquartered in [US].” That is how 90% of business people think of their target markets. In B2B especially, it’s really not true.

Your customer is someone who has a reason to buy from you. That’s not intrinsic to size, location or any other easy demographic or firmographic marker.

Check out Kevin’s article and see what I mean.

Related posts:

1. Relationships vs. Markets: 5 differences between sales and marketing
2. 4 things that marketing can change in a down economy
3. Self indulgent personal statements are not marketing.
4. To know us is to love us – right?
5. Top 3 gaps between marketing leaders

Thanks to Hubspot for this post which made me feel sufficient SEO-guilt to go ahead and make the switch.

Henceforth I shall set a better example.

In addition to the SEO benefits, Wordpress is also rife with useful plugins. These make it incredibly powerful, though not quick to set up. With great power comes great complexity.

I am reposting all the old content from my blog on this feed. Mostly this is for search engine optimization purposes. After that’s done, the new posts will begin. (Nostalgia for the Blogger blog? Previous posts are still over here.)

Related posts:

1. Top 3 gaps between marketing leaders
2. Is 22 Tweets-Per-Day the Optimum? A Twittercurmudgeon mumbles.
3. I bet you don’t know your customer this well.