Should Your Company Have a CMT?

In today’s enterprise, there are a myriad of teams that make up an organization– sales, marketing, finance, IT, HR, business development and so on - with the positions of communications, design and video production typically falling under the marketing umbrella.  This set up has been satisfactory to date but as marketers increasingly utilize technology to manage digital assets to power their marketing campaigns, an additional skill set or role is needed to support their programs.

For digital marketing, software is the top tool for internal and external communications and how effectively a marketing team deploys it can shape the way the firm and the brands they represent are perceived.

Marketers enjoy the benefits of technology but understanding, evaluating and managing the overwhelming amount of technologies available is not part of the job description, nor should it be.  Marketers within an organization need the expertise of a Chief Marketing Technologist (CMT) to help bridge that gap and manage the tools (i.e. mobile, video, automation, CRM, social) to help them be successful at their jobs.

According to Gartner, a CMT is “part strategist, part creative and part technologist” and “broadly the equivalent of a CTO and CIO dedicated to marketing,” further reporting that 81% of large companies now employ a CMT.

The CMT typically reports in to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and as highlighted in this month’s Harvard Business Review, “assists in aligning marketing technology with business goals, serving as a liaison to IT, and evaluating and choosing technology providers.”

While some may ask if this role is really required and why can’t marketing – as it has in the past - just tap into IT as needed, it is clear based on the sheer number of technologies marketers use today that having those roles working in silos will no longer allow companies in the corporate market to succeed.

The CMT is the conduit for driving the strategic technology direction and business goal alignment for marketing as a whole and with the addition of this position, the marketing department can focus on their area of expertise and leave the bits and bytes behind.