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Moore’s Law, which essentially states that the processing speed of an integrated circuit doubles every 18-24 months, will have a significant impact on marketing in the 21st century. However, for this impact to occur, marketers must make use of today’s technology—and prepare for the technology of tomorrow.
Last week, I gave a speech at the MarketingProfs B2B Forumwhere I highlighted some research from Forrester. Through a survey of B2B marketing executives, Forrester discovered only half of the respondents were using technology to measure and manage marketing efforts and 57% admitted reporting systems “needed more work.” I’ll take “needing more work” as a euphemism for “what we have in place isn’t cutting it.”
In most instances, B2B marketing executives are a bit behind B2C marketers in the adoption and utilization of key technologies (data warehousing, analytics, interaction management etc). However I still found the results of the survey disturbing.
The information frontier is moving quickly. Robert D. St. Louis, a professor at Arizona State University notes:
• Storage space is doubling every 12 months
• Bandwidth speeds and capacities are doubling every 9 months
• The number of transistors placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years (Moore’s Law)
The implications of these trends? More storage space is needed to keep up with the deluge of data from ERP, point of sale, billing and other source systems. With bandwidth speeds doubling, data will be delivered to those who need it at rapid speeds. And faster computer chips mean that data will be processed at an accelerated pace.
Technology won’t wait for marketing to catch up. Today’s marketer needs to champion the technology of today, while preparing for the technology of tomorrow.
But wait, you’re probably thinking that technology isn’t the only panacea to marketing effectiveness. And you would be right. For if it were, to simply purchase a marketing automation suite (for example) would solve all our woes—and obviously that’s not the case. The wise executive knows that it’s a people, process, technology issue—in that order.
However—if, as marketer’s, we’re not using the technology available to us today, how are we ever going to be prepared to utilize and capitalize on the technology of tomorrow?
To be fair, there are companies (and marketers), especially in the B2C space utilizing the technology of today to drive better segmentation strategies, find hidden patterns for product/service affinities, create more relevant customer communications, and even price more effectively. That said, these companies are in the minority.
The information technology frontier isn’t standing still—in fact it’s moving at an exponential rate.
What do you think is the impact of Moore’s Law on marketing—now and in the future?
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Comments
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Posted by: Claire Ratushny | 10.15.07
Paul,
I don't know what happened to my comment--it disappeared.
Let me try again. I liked your statement from the Marketing Profs conference: "Better information leads to better decision making." Agreed.
However, having worked in a fairly large company recently, I'd like to make two observations. First, if great information has to be taken to a committee meeting format where there has to be consensus before acting, there can be lots of discussion as a result, sans any action. Secondly, I've observed managers who really loathe making decisions of any kind. God forbid, they might not be the right ones, or they might not be taken at the appropriate time. This mentality persists in many companies, hence, nothing gets done. To your point: business simply doesn't have the luxury of not acting anymore. That means information had better be timely and better be gathered in such a way that it represents important data, worth considering in the decision-making process.
Thanks for another well-thought-out, well-articulated post, Paul.
Posted by: Claire Ratushny | 10.15.07
Claire, thank you for commenting. As you point out, information is only so valuable, as when it's acted upon.
I also have a wealth of articles I've captured over the years about the art of "indecision". It's the old CYA adage--"If I never stick my neck out and make a tough call, I'll outlast those who are making the tough calls." It's an interesting career strategy...
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 10.15.07
Nice post, Paul. Even with good information, and so much technology available to marketers now, I wonder if many aren't simply overwhelmed by it all. You know: so much information, so much new technology, so little time to assimilate it all. I wonder whether that doesn't lead to some of the "paralysis" Claire alluded to, as well.
Posted by: Ted Mininni | 10.15.07
Ted, I'd agree with you that 24 hours a day will be a constant until God decides to change it. Lots of information--too much, means prioritization becomes even more important.
The concept of "dashboards" is really overdone, but there's some relevance to tracking KPIs, and data that impact the business.
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 10.15.07
As a veteran of the analytics wars, I'm pretty much convinced that the gating factor in adoption of new technology in marketing is the inability of marketers to stop executing long enough to think strategically and ask themselves whether what they're doing is the right thing or not.
Technology has outstripped effective use of analytics for at least 20 years now. It's not about the technology. It's about marketing professionals becoming strategic thinkers and asking the questions that will really make a difference in their businesses. Once they have high value for getting the answers to the questions, the technology will be there to help them get those answers.
Posted by: Michael Goodman | 10.15.07
Michael, thank you for commenting.
I agree that marketers need to take a step back from their daily routines and ask themselves questions like, "why am I doing this?", "am I targeting the right people?", "is this the right message?", "what is the optimal marketing mix based on my limited budget?", "are we delivering the right products?" etc.
To your point, stopping for a minute, taking a deep breath, and asking the right questions is key. Then, analytics can help us uncover and discover the right answers to help drive our businesses forward.
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 10.15.07
I do believe that we can benefit from Moore's law and already have. This blog is evidence of that, right? Google search, etc., etc.? And Google Analytics is free!! I remember when it was Urchin (before Google bought it out) we paid a monthly fee.
We have come a long way since I first booted up my Apple II. I could never have dreamed in my wildest imagination the Internet and all of the tools we have at our fingertips.
That said, could we do better? Absolutely.
What does marketing need that it does not have now that technology can provide? Better reporting technology? Better ways to segment and analyze our target customers? What? I know we need much, much more to ride the Moore's law wave but what?
Posted by: Neil Anuskiewicz | 10.16.07
Neil, thanks for commenting. To answer your question, I believe it begins with a robust and foundational IT infrastructure to capture, cleanse, integrate, store, analyze and disseminate data and information (actionable intelligence) throughout the enterprise to help both operational and strategic employees make better decisions.
There are good case studies of companies "doing it right", but I think they're a small piece of the pie.
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 10.16.07
Paul,
How is this done? Are there tools that tie all together?
Posted by: Neil Anuskiewicz | 10.16.07
Neil, with so many technologies and that every IT shop is different, I'm loathe to give out a comprehensive list. That said, fundamentally they are EAI (enterprise application integration), ETL (extract,transform,load), data warehouse, BI and/or analytical tools/applications. Business Activity monitoring (BAM), Business process management (BPM) technologies might also be a factor. I'll send you a slide that might make it a bit more clear...
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 10.17.07
Thanks Paul and I will view the slide as well.
Thanks for the post, too, you bring up some very, very important things.
Posted by: Neil Anuskiewicz | 10.17.07