The Triathletes of Modern Marketing

Flash back to me at Inverta’s 2019 company offsite, and I’m discussing our content themes for the coming year.

 I’m feeling smug.

 “Data-driven marketing. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along? Since marketing automation?” I made no attempt to hide my sarcasm. “Why are we even here?”

 My colleague claps back, “maybe yes, maybe no. The idea is more comprehensive than it’s been before. It carries a bigger meaning.”

 I shook my head.

 Flash forward to present day. I’ve tossed the idea of data-driven marketing around in my head for a couple months trying to answer the question: Why does the term “data-driven marketing” resonate with so many? Why are these words, this lexicon, picking up speed after so many years?

 My big sister is a professional triathlete. She probably wouldn’t win a medal at an individual swimming, biking, or running event – but string them together, and she has the talent and endurance to decimate IronMan courses across the United States.

 SEO and content, demand generation, display and programmatic, social, email, field events – today’s marketers might medal in one or more of these disciplines. But the data-driven marketers are the triathletes of modern marketing. They recognize data as the invisible string that ties everything together, and allow each function to operate at a data-driven pace that results in the biggest overall impact: a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

They recognize data as the invisible string that ties everything together, and allow each function to operate at a data-driven pace that results in the biggest overall impact: a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

To be data-driven is to be holistic, but the “how” is to examine the three legs of the data-driven marketer’s stool: Planning, Content, Orchestration.

 The heart and soul of data-driven marketing lies in how data is leveraged in these three scenarios. What are the tools that make that data available in real time, and how do planning, content, orchestration and intent work together seamlessly to deliver next-level results?

 We’re committed to further investigating what it means to be data-driven with a new Seminar and Panel Series called Data-Driven Marketing: Dissolving Boundaries and Delivering Impact.