According to a new survey from IBM, 60 percent of marketers point to their lack of alignment with the company's IT department as the biggest obstacle to reaching today's consumers.
The frustration comes as the survey found marketers eagerly preparing to move beyond mobile coupons and deliver mobile advertising that reaches customers on their smartphone and tablets. According to the study, 34 percent of respondents stated that in less than 12 months they intend to deliver mobile ads, the highest rate of new marketing tactic adoption in the five-year history of IBM's study. Overall, 46 percent of respondents are currently using mobile websites followed by 45 percent utilizing mobile applications, up from 40 percent and 44 percent respectively last year.
Among the other findings:
- While 48 percent of respondents believe that improved technology infrastructure or software will enable them to do more, nearly 60 percent indicated that lack of IT alignment and integration are significant barriers to the adoption of technology;
- While 71 percent believe integration across owned, earned and paid channels is important, only 29 percent are effectively integrating these different channels. When asked why, 59 percent said that existing systems are too disparate to integrate these channels. In social and mobile, only 21 percent and 22 percent of respondents run these tactics as part of integrated campaigns with the remainder conducting them in silos, discretely and on an ad hoc basis;
- While marketers continue to experiment with social media channels, 51 percent are not using this data to inform decisions about marketing offers and messages;
- When asked how they are using online visitor data, 65 percent of respondents are doing the basics, reporting and analyzing their data. Only one third are using this data to target one-to-one offers or messages in digital channels and less than 20 percent are using this online data to make one-to-one offers in traditional channels.
IBM's State of Marketing 2012 surveyed more than 350 marketing professionals across a wide range of industries and geographies.
"Marketing and IT have no alternative but to emerge from their traditional silos and form a strong partnership that puts the business in a position to succeed," said Yuchun Lee, vice president, IBM Enterprise Marketing Management Group, in a statement. "CMOs and CIOs, an 'odd couple' in some respects, will be the catalysts in forging this union and enabling the types of personalized multichannel brand relationships that today's customers demand."