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"Time to ditch the IT department?"

Anyone who has worked for an e-marketing or e-communications team will find something familiar in this scenario:

You want to pilot a new online approach. You know what you need, find a simple, easy solution, identify the right provider, purchase a license, (under-the-radar of course). Just as you are beginning to enjoy success, someone from IT calls you insisting that you have to shut the whole thing down. You are forced to spend wasted time explaining/justifying/arguing why your online approach is adding value to the business/delivering results/meeting objectives. If you are lucky you can escalate the battle up to a marketing leader who will support you. Otherwise, you are told, (by the very same people who should be ecstatic about your results), to “work with IT” and what follows are months of wasted time and a clunky, inferior, internally designed alternative.

Tristan Rogers, managing director of the Concrete Group has been busy raising the issue within the UK Marketing community. Last week he wrote an article for technologyweekly.mad.co.uk provocatively entitled "Time to ditch the IT department?".  It requires membership to view, so here's an excerpt:

Given the ease with which […] online solutions can be deployed, why do marketing departments still insist on referring this technology choice to IT departments? In the vast majority of cases the "pay as you go" service provided is far superior to that of an internal IT department […] so why are marketing departments so loath to take control over this key business issue? More bizarrely, why do so many persist in bowing to the supposed expertise of IT when these people do not, obviously, understand the marketing needs of the organisation and appear incapable of delivering any kind of technology solution in under 12 to 18 months?

Although here he makes sweeping statements about marketing departments, in his letter to this month’s The Marketer, he does acknowledge:

[…] maverick individuals that have managed to introduce new technology under the radar of the IT department [...]

As an ex-maverick, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the exact same issue… why does it occur with such depressing frequency?

This is the situation as far as I understand it:

First, take the IT perspective - for years, IT department have enjoyed autonomy, big budgets, power and respect. Clearly, they don’t want to lose their status.  Rather than stepping aside, admitting weakness in their department and letting other make decisions on emerging technology, they will try to assert their authority. That’s human/organisational behaviour at its most predictable. Are we really surprised?

What is surprising is the question Tristan asks:

“…why are marketing departments so loath to take control over this key business issue?”

The extent of the problem will really depend on how far along the online learning curve an organisation is. We have to remember:

1. Many organisations haven’t clearly defined what e-Marketing / e-Communications is, or how it integrates with other aspects of the business


2. Traditional marketing practioners often make the mistake of believing because online professionals work with technology they are IT people


3. Many marketing leaders are frightened of IT. Since they don’t understand it, they find it easier to defer all technology related decisions to the IT department rather than expose themselves to any imagined risk


4. Even if online professionals sit within marketing departments, it is very possible that their own marketing leaders don’t understand what they do or how their work fits in with the overall marketing strategy. If marketing decision-makers don’t take full ownership of online, others will continue to make decisions for them

In reality, IT’s remit shouldn’t overlap at all with e-Marketing’s: different budget, different goals, different technology and so on.

However, many e-Marketing teams still work within a matrix reporting structure which includes IT. Or else, they operate in a grey area where it is not clear who has ultimate decision making power over online technology because Marketing leadership hasn’t fully integrated their online teams. I know many people who are responsible for internet content and e-marketing who still officially sit within the IT department.  That’s the problem!

Dave Chaffey and e-Consultancy did an interesting piece of research on organisational structures and management of digital teams. This area is still pretty new, and evolving before our eyes. We have a lot of information about how to make e-marketing campaigns successful, but very little about how to successfully structure and manage e-marketing departments.  I think many companies are struggling with this very issue, which is why agencies like Tristan’s come up against such insanity.

As best practice structures and organisational designs emerge, the delination between enterprise IT and online marketing will be settled. Until then, I predict that the marketing/IT struggle for online technology will unfortunately continue.

Selling "content" to your marketing leaders

In my experience many business leaders, (at least the ones with ultimate budget control), don't understand what the term "content" means, let alone its significance in their business strategy.

The trouble is, even if there is a clued up web team in an organisation, this team still has to go to leadership to get budget sign-off for web expenditure: headcount for content editors or in-house web designers, budget for web enhancements, development, what have you.  Each time they have to explain exactly what the expenditure is, and why they need it.

This is often where the communication fails.  The clued up web team uses web jargon and web-centric justifications for their budget request.  (i.e. to improve content quality and freshness, to increase unique visits, to improve SEO, and so on).  The business leaders have NO IDEA what any of this means, and certainly no comprehension of why it is important....  thus web content remains on the periphery.

Imagine a meeting with director level marketing leaders and a web team.  The web team tries to present a report on the status of the organisation's website.  They refer to "content items"... and the marketing leaders' eyes glaze over in boredom.  Chances are traditional marketers have no clue what a "content item" is.  Nor do they see how this had anything to do with their own marketing strategies. 

A better approach is to speak their language: "copy”, “articles", "press releases", "product details", or other jargon that they already understand.  And, always bring it back to their objectives.  Spell out why online content matters in terms of brand, sales, marketing,....

Using a Google example is always powerful.  Ask them what they would do if searching for a service/product/business like theirs?  Then, show them where they are (or are not) in the Google rankings.  (In my experience traditional marketers react really well to this exercise), and discuss why their web content is problematic.

I also found using practical stats, like: x% of consumers use the web to research products/services/businesses prior to making purchases, or x% of FT100 business leaders use the web for their business information, or x% of job applicants visit a company's website before accepting a job offer, and so on.  Then say, so, if you were to visit your website as a consumer/client/prospect, etc., what would your impression be?

Then walk them through how to improve their "brand" by improving the information they have on their website.  When an organisation starts to make the link between their brand, the quality of the content they have on their website, and their actual business objectives, they start to rethink the way they manage (or don't manage) their content.  It finally clicks that this is NOT a technical issue, nor a peripheral one!

Of course, for those of us who make our living from companies who can't seem to get the online content issue right, maybe we really want to keep our mouths shut!!