One-Quarter of Marketers Report Digital Maturity

As marketers and their strategies become more mature, they are seeing better results in terms of everything from automation to data-driven marketing.

The “Running on Experience: 2017 Digital Marketing Report” from Adobe recently looked at how marketers rank their overall maturity and how it impacts their strategies. Approximately 24 percent of marketers reported “advanced maturity,” which is a significant increase from 11 percent in 2016. Thirty-eight percent are investing in all areas of digital maturity, such as structure, people, processes, and tools. This is compared to 28 percent in 2016.

In terms of their tactics, 48 percent claim that they are now using a CRM to augment data-driven marketing. Forty percent are utilizing real-time data from analytics, and 38 percent are using data visualization. About 36 percent of respondents are also now automating personalized content for the Web.

Nearly all (95 percent) of respondents stated that they intend to grow their digital maturity in the coming months by investing in some or all of its key pillars (structure, people, processes and tools).

New Marketing Opportunities to Mature in 2018

As marketers look for new tactics to try in 2018 to mature, previous research suggests that there may be more opportunities in cross-channel marketing.

In a survey conducted by Bates Creative at the American Marketing Association’s annual conference, more than one-quarter of marketers claim that they see cross-channel marketing as their largest opportunity in the coming year. Although 42 percent stated that their organization does not provide a consistent cross-channel customer experience, they believe now is the right time to turn this challenge into an opportunity.