Marketing lacks digital and data skills

In the CMO Council’s report Rising above the fray: How marketers can right the revenue ship, marketing is stated to account for almost half of company revenues but are undermined by issues such as sceptical chief executives and mediocre data skills.

The research is based on a survey of 150 brand leaders and in-depth interviews with executive from companies including Cisco, F5, Pitney Bowes, Five9, PepsiCo and Henkel.

The CMO Council found issues with understanding data, with 85% of marketing teams having data literacy gaps.

The majority of respondents were moderately successful or worse in leveraging data for customer segmentation ( 79%), applying data analytics for customer insight ( 73%) and take action based on customer insights ( 75%).

The report says that marketers face many challenges, including the need to show marketing attribution to revenue and make investments in data analytics and marketing technology.

High pressure to deliver revenue growth was cited by 63% of respondents, with 53% saying they were moderately confident or worse of meeting revenue targets.

Chief executives were deemed moderately satisfied or worse with marketing’s performance in 57% of respondents, according to the report.

Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, said: “With limited resources, marketers need to go deep on a handful of strategic initiatives.

“Digital experience, content strategy and omnichannel should be top priorities.”