But are marketers feeling confident in their efforts? Not many, according to a survey released by Adobe this week at Advertising Week in New York.
Marketing Stresses
The survey -- Digital Distress: What Keeps Marketers Up at Night? -- found that only 9% of marketing professionals strongly agreed with the statement that they “know their digital marketing is working.”
The survey, conducted this month, included 1,000 marketers from the following subgroups:
- Marketing decision makers: 436
- Marketing staff: 499
- Digital marketers: 263
- Marketing generalists: 754
What else are marketers worried about? Themselves, their companies and how their campaigns stack up with ROI, according to this survey. Half of them say they are not confident in their digital ability, but 48% of digital marketers do say they feel “highly proficient” in digital marketing.
They also have low confidence in their companies’ marketing performance -- only 40% think their company’s marketing is effective.
Top Concerns
Further, nearly 70% feel more pressured to show return on investment on marketing spend, and they’re doing this without much formal training: 82% learn on the job, according to the survey.
Learning Opportunities
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Specifically, marketers greatest concerns are:
- Reaching their customers (82%)
- Understanding whether their campaigns are working (79%)
- Proving campaign effectiveness (77%)
- Demonstrating marketing return on investment (75%)
Strategies for Digital Marketing Success
While the news out of the survey seems grim, 60% of digital marketers do feel their companies will invest more in digital marketing technology this year.
So what does that mean? Digital marketers must get over their fears and continue to find things that work.
We’ve discussed a few strategies lately:
- Consider this approach: companies are increasingly mining existing customer data to create targeted offers, then deploying advanced analytics to test effectiveness and refine their targeting.
- Strike a balanced approach between measuring analytics and actual human insights.
- Create a unified voice when delivering marketing messages across multiple channels.
- Ensure your content has some degree of quality, but if you wait too long to produce content, you might not even have a chance. Find that delicate balance that each company or brand must find for itself.
Image courtesy of alphaspirit (Shutterstock)
