As technology plays an ever-growing role in all aspects of business, there are certain departments that could see marked benefits from having more interactions and engaging in cross-functional initiatives with the tech team—especially marketing and communications, where audience targeting and outreach efforts are becoming increasingly analytical.
Working together, a company’s marketing and tech teams can reach, educate and maintain a far broader customer base, which can give a big boost to the overall bottom line. Below, 20 Forbes Technology Council members share impactful collaboration strategies for marketing and tech teams that can lead to a real, measurable ROI.
1. Develop And Refine A Customer Data Platform
A synergistic effort in which marketing and tech teams can significantly collaborate is in the development and refinement of a sophisticated customer data platform. By combining the tech team’s expertise in data management and analytics with the marketing team’s insights into customer behavior and preferences, a CDP can offer a powerful, unified view of customer interactions across multiple channels. – Miguel Llorca, Torrent Group
2. Create A Metrics-Based Lead-Generation Culture
Marketing teams experiment with millions of dollars each year as they explore different lead-generation techniques. The ability to create a strong information system with clear funnel analytics is required to maximize the ROI. The technology team can help implement both the information systems and automated reporting needed to help the marketing team create a metrics-based culture that maximizes ROI. – Ari Kahn, Bridgeline Digital
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3. Guide Marketing Priorities Based On Customer Feedback
It’s imperative that the marketing and communications teams align with the tech team. The tech team likely has a pulse on what is and is not working based on customer feedback. The tech team can partner with marketing and comms teams to push for the evangelization of features—new and old—that are doing well with customers, as well as sideline efforts to boost features that users say aren’t working for them. – Christian Wiklund, unitQ
4. Share The ‘Why’ Behind The Product
One vital effort is product-based storytelling. The tech team has more knowledge of customers’ pain points and how to solve them. When the marketing and tech teams partner more closely on storytelling—sharing the human aspect of why the tech team is doing what they’re doing with the product—product management decisions will be much stronger and more meaningful to customers. – Praerit Garg, Smartsheet
5. Explain The Innovation Process
One avenue for growth is explaining innovation. Companies today are putting together innovative solutions for their customers. Marketing departments promote the new solution’s benefits through ads and materials; however, they rarely focus on the innovation used to create the product, the tech team’s skills and the thought process. Make the customer look forward to the next innovation from the company. – Sean Barker, cloudEQ
6. Optimize The Company Website
Marketing is now, at minimum, a 75% digital function. There are still non-technical skills required, such as design and copyediting, but any high-performing marketing team must be fully versed in the nuances of SEO and SEM, pay-per-click advertising, the social media landscape, online reputation management, and more. An obvious opportunity for partnership between marketing and technology teams is the business’ website. – Aasim Saeed, Amenities Health
7. Collaborate On User Testing
A valuable way marketing and tech teams could collaborate would be through user testing and feedback-based improvements. For example, the marketing and communications staff could test new software integrations, functions and business site capabilities before they become available to users. Having a line of communication between the tech team and the “customer front” is an efficient means of ensuring quality output. – Steve Gickling, Calendar
8. Coordinate Pre-Launch Activities
Many development teams believe a project is complete when it passes through quality control. The reality is that there are several more steps before release—from demos to support to training to sales enablement to marketing communications. Tight coordination and collaboration between development, sales and marketing teams for the entire lifecycle makes for a stronger, more successful launch. – Josh Dunham, Reveel
9. Foster Data-Driven Personalization
Collaborating on data-driven personalization is crucial. By leveraging tech insights, marketing can tailor outreach with precision. Aligning customer data analysis and creative strategies enhances targeting, ensuring impactful and resonant campaigns. – Mohit Gupta, Damco Solutions
10. Thoroughly Verse Marketers In New Products
I suggest involving the marketing and communications teams early on in technology projects. Include them in pre-project brainstorming so they have a clear vision of the need. Include them in project meetings so they have a clear perspective on the direction and expectations. Finally, include them in your test group so they are some of the first to see the impact of the new technology. – Robert Martin, Oil City Iron Works, Inc.
11. Ensure Product-Market Fit
Whenever the tech team comes up with a new feature or product, the marketing team should be there in order to determine if there will be a correct market fit for it. Likewise, marketers should share their gathered insights and customer pain points with the tech team, which will enable an optimal product development roadmap. For this, there should be an open line of communication between these departments. – Ivan Guzenko, SmartyAds Inc.
12. Develop A Unified Customer Journey Map
While marketing and tech teams often don’t work closely together, they can collaborate to develop a unified portal for customer journey mapping. Mapping the entire customer journey from initial awareness to post-purchase support could provide an organization with important data that helps the team understand customer behavior and preferences. – Phil Portman, Textdrip
13. Refine Data Analytics Processes
Marketing and tech teams excel when collaborating on developing and refining data analytics processes. Merging marketing insights with advanced analytics amplifies targeting strategies, fine-tunes outreach efforts and champions a data-driven approach to decision making. This partnership ensures marketing aligns with tech capabilities, resulting in more effective and targeted campaigns. – Christopher Rogers, Carenet Health
14. Create Rich Tech Content
One impactful way for the marketing team to collaborate with tech experts is through the creation of rich tech content. By integrating tech insights into marketing materials, a business can communicate complex ideas in a more accessible way. Such collaborations ensure accurate messaging and resonate well with both tech-savvy and non-technical audiences, enhancing overall engagement and credibility. – Yuriy Gnatyuk, Kindgeek
15. Trade Insights
The marketing and tech teams should meet on a weekly basis to share insights. Marketing can draw on the tech team’s valuable insights into customer behavior, pain points and solutions to create more targeted campaigns. The tech team can benefit from the marketing team’s understanding of market trends and customer needs, which can inform the development of user-friendly and intuitive technology solutions. – Ryan Barone, RentRedi
16. Reduce Cybersecurity Risk
“Shadow IT”—IT not explicitly approved by the IT department—can be a big risk. As all departments, including marketing and communications, need to leverage technology more and more, maintaining a dialogue between teams can help prevent a cybersecurity disaster. What tools are needed? How are they kept up to date? What is the acceptable use policy? Talk now! – Ann Westerheim, Ekaru
17. Create Highly Targeted Campaigns
Marketing and tech teams can collaborate on implementing data-driven personalization strategies. By leveraging technology to analyze customer data, they can create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with individual users, enhancing customer engagement and improving ROI. This synergy between IT integration, analytics and marketing creativity can lead to innovative, effective outreach efforts. – Roi Sorezki, twik
18. Develop Customer Segmentation
I think one impactful effort a company’s marketing and tech teams could work together on is developing customer segmentation. The tech team’s data-driven approach can help the marketing team understand consumers’ preferences and behaviors, allowing better product recommendations and targeted campaigns. This will also improve customer engagement and retention. – Aditya Malik, ValueMatrix.ai
19. Implement Customer-Focused ML Algorithms
The marketing and tech teams can work together to implement machine learning algorithms to better understand what different customers like and don’t like. By looking closely at customer data, they can send more personalized ads and offers to each person. This means customers get information that matches their interests, which can make them more likely to buy something or use the company’s service. – Margarita Simonova, ILoveMyQA
20. Measure The Impact Of Company Products And Services
Marketing content is most compelling and credible when it highlights measurable impact. With the help of tech teams, marketing teams can mine data for insights into consumers’ experience with the company’s products or services, such as the rate of return customers, positive reviews or even cost savings. These metrics can increase the impact and value of brand messaging for potential customers. – Merav Yuravlivker, Data Society
