Digital stifled by lack of leadership

Marketers might talk a good game, but few companies have an integrated digital strategy and even those which do are not turning to marketing to lead that process.
That is the rather worrying finding of this year’s version of What Works Where in B2B Digital Marketing, a study which been run for the past five years by digital agency Omobono.
It reveals that there is also a clear belief that an integrated approach to digital communications is hampered by the lack of a clear leader. Marketing strongly believe they should take this role (88%), although other departments are less clear about who should. Only 23% of other departments believe marketing should lead.
When in place, an integrated approach more than triples confidence in the effectiveness of communications (from 11% to 35%) and boosts confidence in reported ROI to 52%.
Marketing, more than any other department, recognises the benefit of an integrated digital strategy, with 94% saying it is “important” and 56% saying it’s “crucial”
Meanwhile a fifth (20%) of strategists say social media is crucial, compared to 18% for informally joined-up and 9% for those without a joined-up approach
Businesses with a formal, integrated digital strategy are the most successful and confident, achieving a significantly better ROI than their peers.
These businesses also share other key behaviours: they target customers more frequently; they use a wide array of channels, but have a greater focus on innovative channels such as social media and mobile; and they use more metrics to measure ROI (6.3 metrics vs. 5.7 for informal but joined-up and 5.5 for those without an integrated approach).
These strategists also use vastly different metrics, with a focus on brand awareness and brand perception, rather than traditional sales-related metrics such as conversion rates, sales pipeline and lead generation. This could suggest an ingredient of success in marketing is a focus on more qualitative measures rather than quantitative ones.
The research also suggests that the challenge to effectively measure ROI continues. More marketers (71%) measure ROI than any other department, but they are the least confident in the accuracy of this measurement (only 23% are confident in the ROI figure calculated) and only 13% of marketers believe their communications are very effective. This gap could be due to the fact marketers are most aware of the constantly-changing and complex business environment, which makes ROI difficult to measure and means new measurement tools are continually launching.
The benefits of an integrated approach are widely recognised, with “delivering a better customer experience” at the top of the list with 64% of respondents agreeing. Operational efficiencies and a stronger brand message were also benefits.
Omobono chairman Francesca Brosan said: “Digital has transformed the face of marketing, making communications a part of every department’s remit today. However, savvy strategic marketers are leveraging their knowledge of how the media landscape is rapidly evolving and using it to align their organisations behind a single-minded, cohesive digital push.
“While marketers clearly have the skills to master the emerging media, this research shows that they need to realise that internal communications are as important as external and they must put more effort into communicating their learnings and expertise with their colleagues. This will not only improve collaboration and results but it will – crucially – improve the perception of marketers beyond the marketing department too. These results underline the need for marketing to be better understood internally so that organisations fully appreciate the value and complexity of modern marketing.”