Chris Powell, CMO of data management software company Commvault says today’s brands are too tied to familiar old marketing approaches.

“The traditional is still being used, more than most companies would want to admit. Who wants to admit they’re doing old, stale things?” he says.

That said, Powell doesn’t think all old school approaches are defunct. Events, for example, continue to produce results and overall, he believes a mixture of tactics is ideal. He says: “It’s easy to look at marketing tactics as one off, individual things, but in modern marketing you really need to see it as a mix of tactics that need to all achieve a common objective.”

Still there is some way to go in the adoption of technology. He says: “Research shows the amount of companies not leveraging cutting edge marketing automation and things that are possible now. Many companies are still very much in the early days of adopting these things. It can be a tremendous competitive advantage.”

The speed at which newer technologies are being adopted often comes down to marketers needing to be smarter, suggests Powell. He highlights three key areas marketers should be savvier in: targeting, content and execution.

Powell says: “The targeting side of things is fundamentally changing as it relates to the predictive analytics and the models you can put together. The content side is in terms of using personas and looking at the reality of the kind of content people are consuming.

“When you look at the ability to execute on all of your campaigns, the amount of tools available and the testing you can do to see what’s working and what’s not working has never been more powerful.”

Powell believes this is by far the biggest challenge facing the industry but he says the best way to get over the hump is for companies to create new jobs within the marketing team.

“When we talk about how marketing is changing, some of that is bringing in new roles. Some roles that traditionally weren’t always viewed as important in the marketing organisation are now growing in importance in a very fast way,” he says.

Powell says companies should be on the look out for two people: someone who knows about data and someone else with intimate knowledge of marketing software and technologies.

“The two roles are similar in that they’re both taking a very scientific look at the world, but one is more of a pure data scientist looking at predictive engines and the other is looking at all of the different elements of software technology marketers can leverage today,” says Powell.

Lead image via Fanpop.