Why Marketing & IT Should Merge

I've been working in marketing for a decade and a half (full-time). Before that, I was a community organizer and a student who worked in public relations. But in the last 15 years, I have become more and more convinced that IT/Development (for the purposes of this article, I'm going to call them Development) needs to be a partner with marketing.

But what does that mean? Let's think about that.

In today's world of marketing, there is a massive toolbox of strategies and tactics. Just to name a few: events, partnerships, physical locations (stores, experiences, etc.), social media, print media, paid media, UX, UI, SEO, SEM, CRM, digital media, customer services.

It is no longer a simple website and all other activities that make up marketing for companies large and small. And so we can not look at the website as a simple tool. In fact, the website is just the tip of the digital iceberg that needs a strong internal partnership. And more than a partnership, it needs a team of marketing and development experts.

The challenge a lot of marketers have is that we have these great ideas that we believe (and sometimes know) can move the business needle. But we don't have access to information (data) or that data sits in a different database that doesn't talk to our current CRM and development doesn't have the time to do the work for six or more months. In the meantime, the marketing team is missing out on a prime selling season all because these systems don't talk to each other.

That is just one example and there are plenty more. It will become even more important for these two teams to work together as members of the same team instead of separate departments. This is especially true as CRMs become more powerful and we gain more and more data insights into prospects and customers.

The longer development and marketing remain separate with a wall between them, the longer it will take to meet the needs of modern and creative marketing. And that's just potential sales out the door.