The Promise of Technology for Marketing

In 2002, Information Week quoted Stephen Diorio as saying, “For years, technology has held out an elusive promise:  turning sales and marketing systems into high-performance engines of revenue growth.  Most of us are still waiting for results.”

Here we are, nearing the end of 2005, and most organizations are still waiting.  Many executives have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Internet-based initiatives without finding an increase in the return on investment of their marketing dollars.  Still others never capitalize on the benefits technology could create for their organizations for fear of repeating the horror stories about projects that come in late, over budget, and often times don’t deliver the needed or expected capabilities.  They’re right to be concerned because the status quo of today’s Internet technology implementations has not been beneficial to the needs of today’s business reality.

The promise of technology for marketing departments is to increase the ratio of dollars invested in sales and marketing to revenue realized.  That statement is just common sense given today's business realities.  Read the following post from the Marketing Interactions blog, "ROW - Return on Website."  Further, today’s technology is expected to give companies a competitive advantage, plus increased productivity, growth, and customer satisfaction.  However, marketing organizations are finding that in order to receive the full benefits of Internet technology they need the ability to create evolving solutions, adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, and blend new technologies with their existing business processes.

I’m going to spend the next few posts exploring the following questions:

1. How does the “status quo” hurt online business implementations?
2. How will managing your company’s “solution cycle” allow you to plan for problems that aren’t on your radar yet?
3. What are five business measures that drive success in online initiatives?
4. What can you really expect when implementing an effective online initiative and what failures should you watch out for and avoid before they happen to you?

What’s been your experience in launching online initiatives?  Does your website, intranet, and extranet deliver the necessary functionality that provides the kind of business gain you had hoped for?

They can, and business users should demand it.  Implementing an effective, evolving infrastructure doesn't have to break the bank either.  It’s time for businesses to start realizing the promise of technology – we’re going to explore and demonstrate how!