Last week, Salesforce released their annual ‘State of Marketing’ report. Based on a survey of 4,000 marketing professionals throughout the world, the report sought to learn more about:

• Trends that are changing the role of marketing,
• Key insights on primary digital marketing channels,
• How high-performing marketing teams approach the customer journey and experience.

Here is a list of the nine key takeaways from the report:

1.Top marketing teams win with a customer journey strategy.

High-performing marketing teams are 8.8x more likely than underperformers to strongly agree that they’ve adopted a customer journey strategy as part of their overall business strategy. 73% percent say that a customer journey strategy has positively impacted overall customer engagement.

2. Top marketing teams are integrating the customer experience.

Successful marketing leaders are crossing the boundaries of business units to create a single view of the customer. High-performing marketing teams are 7.7x more likely than underperformers to strongly agree they’re leading customer experience initiatives across the business — bridging the gap between marketing, sales, and service.

3. Top marketing teams get smart with tech adoption.

To keep pace with a dynamic industry and continually make marketing communications smarter, 72% of top teams will increase spending on marketing tools and tech in the next two years. Top teams are more likely to extensively use marketing analytics and predictive intelligence, among other tools.

4. Top marketing teams align with business leadership.

The world’s best marketing teams have buy-in from company leaders. As such, marketing budgets are more likely to be prioritised. Eighty-three percent of high performers say their executive team is completely committed to supporting the overall marketing strategy, compared to only 31% of underperformers.

5. Real-time channel orchestration strikes a chord.

Leading marketers understand the value of a cross-channel approach. In fact, top teams are 3.2x more likely than underperformers to strongly agree they’ve integrated their social media activity into their overall marketing strategy.

6. Mobile momentum hits a tipping point.

From 2015 to 2016, every aspect of mobile covered in this research has risen significantly in usage. This growth encompasses both mobile as a marketing platform (such as mobile apps) and mobile as a marketing channel (such as SMS). With 98% growth in mobile app usage and 111% growth in SMS usage, a majority of marketers are now using these mainstream mobile tactics to engage customers.

7. Intelligent email is driving higher revenue.

As email personalization capabilities grow more sophisticated, the channel becomes even more integral for marketers to deliver a holistic customer journey. Top teams are 4.2x more likely than underperformers to leverage predictive intelligence or data science to create personalized emails. Forty-nine percent of marketers say email is directly linked to their business’ primary revenue source — a notable jump from the 20% of marketers who said the same in 2015.

8. Social sees massive ROI growth.

Last year, three of the top five areas where marketers planned to increase their spending involved social outlets. Now, those investments appear to be paying off; 75% of marketing leaders report that social is generating ROI. Top teams are also 1.7x more likely than underperformers to align their social media marketing strategy with other social activities such as customer service, pursuing a more unified customer view.

9. Advertising accelerates on social platforms.

Nearly two-thirds of marketers are boosting budgets for advertising on social platforms in 2016, making it the third largest area for increased investment. Among high performers, 80% will increase spending on advertising on social platforms.

In summary, the report identifies 5 keys to becoming a high-performing marketeer:

• Adopt the customer journey
• Lead the customer experience across the business
• Leverage intelligent marketing technology
• Go mobile – be as cross channel as your customers
• Target ads with customer data

To learn more about the Salesforce’s ‘State of Marketing 2016’ report, or to read the full version, please visit their website.

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