The most recent in a series of CIM events hosted by Elevation Recruitment saw senior marketers in Yorkshire express their concerns for the industry and its future.

The events, called 'Senior marketers' breakfasts', were held in Leeds and York and brought together practitioners and marketing academics to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the industry, chaired by Sarah-Lee Neesam, Director at Elevation Recruitment Group.

Sarah-Lee said, "The 'Senior marketers' breakfasts' give Marketing Directors from the region a real opportunity to share best practice and discuss topics that they face in their day to day role.  When you reach a certain seniority level within your career, it is key that you continue to meet likeminded peers and in the ever-changing digital world we live in, it is important to stay abreast of trends and new ideas. We have had extremely positive feedback from each of the round table events and they continue to go from strength to strength."

Not surprisingly GDPR was in the forefront of everyone's mind as the deadline of 25 May 2018 looms near.  It was felt that legacy systems are the biggest challenge - and a person's right to be forgotten as such systems were built to archive but not delete.  Some organisations are still grappling with who is 'in charge' of data but all agreed that a strong relationship with IT is key.  And although everyone was aware of the new laws there were still come grey areas which, it was felt, needed further clarification in the implementation of those laws.  There is also the difference between B2B and B2C and personal data being used in a business context thrown in to confuse the issues even more.  Everyone around the table agreed that this was indeed keeping them awake at night.

The conversation then turned to the theme of an article published by CIM earlier in the year, which asked if marketing adds value to a business. Based on CIM research that shows while marketing is critical in delivering long-term business advantage, it is also an undervalued function, this is not such a strange question.  The sobering thought is that despite marketing being responsible for driving revenue growth of 19%, 60% of marketing directors do not believe their contribution is taken seriously in their company.  More locally, most Yorkshire businesses don't even have marketing represented on the board.  The convened group agreed that marketers should fight to be on the board as a point of accountability.  If you consider that every touch point is a marketing touch point and getting better at Customer Experience will ensure that the customer is in the boardroom, then the marketing department is essential to that.

This lack of understanding of the results marketing generates is also likely to impact its future. At a time of uncertain economic conditions and 71% of those surveyed concerned that a lack of clarity on marketing's impact could lead to vital budgets being cut, what should a marketer do?  The consensus was 'get on with it'.  Many felt that the uncertainty is here to stay and businesses can waste a lot of time waiting, so forward planning and attracting skilled labour should be the order of the day.  No doubt the business that keeps a keen eye on the political horizon, can be nimble and deploys intelligent use of data will succeed.

Looking at the marketing departments of tomorrow, there was a feeling that many factors will influence this.  For example, as smaller team will most likely consist of generalists whereas a larger team will be more fragmented and specialist.  There was also the thought that more emphasis will be put on particular channels going forward.  Keeping skilled staff is also a worry, as the lure of the South persists, and many felt that cross training good specialists was essential to find our marketing directors of the future.  Coming back to the board room argument, it is interesting to note that the research also showed the area with the biggest talent gap is sadly in customer experience (59%), quickly followed by strategy development (56%) and digital integration (49%).

Read the full CIM article and report referred to here: https://exchange.cim.co.uk/editorial/how-does-marketing-add-value-to-business/

The next two Senior marketers' breakfast events are:

01 February in Rotherham

01 May in Leeds

For more details go to www.cim.co.co.uk/events