The intersection between IT and marketing may not always be intuitive, but it is definitely there. Below are some of the ways IT can support and make valuable contributions to marketing.
1. Share data insights with the marketing department
IT and IT experts can support marketing by sharing insights from data analysis, such as customer behaviour. Marketers can use this insight not just for their own campaigns and strategies but also to support product development and infrastructure enhancements for better customer experience and service quality.
2. Make recommendations on marketing strategy and tactics that affect the company’s technical environment
IT can provide recommendations based on web analytics data that will inform the marketing department on how to improve their existing online presence. Using this information, they could adjust their content management system (CMS) to add features such as expert on-page SEO services, etc., or focus more of their attention towards social media channels instead of traditional ones like email newsletters. IT can even guide them in using specific tools to measure the effectiveness of a particular campaign.
3. Read and comment on marketing collateral such as website copy, email templates and case studies
IT can read through the content of these marketing materials to make sure that they are technically sound, i.e., the copy is well-written (no grammatical or spelling errors), it has been proofread for accuracy and tone of voice, and there’s nothing in it that will scare off customers.
IT can also check if there are any inner links in these materials, which lead to non-existent pages, broken images and videos, etc. They may be asked by marketing to provide guidance when revising or updating their web or email templates so that technical problems like this do not happen again.
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IT can contact marketing to offer their expertise on the matter. They may be asked by marketing to provide guidance when revising or updating their web or email templates so that technical problems like this do not happen again.
5. Participate in user experience testing involving your website, emails and internal tools
IT can volunteer for user experience testing involving websites, emails and internal tools used within the company. They are likely to have more knowledge of what’s technically possible rather than marketers who are most familiar with potential options available for content management systems (CMS). IT could even develop some of the tests scripts himself – just make sure your developers don’t mind having their work being put through rigorous usability testing first.
6. Make recommendations on marketing strategy and tactics that affect the company’s customer-facing technology environment
IT can provide recommendations based on web analytics data that will inform the marketing department on how to improve its online presence. Using this information, they could adjust their CMS to add features such as SEO, etc., or focus more of their attention towards social media channels instead of traditional ones like email newsletters. IT can even guide them in using specific tools to measure the effectiveness of a particular campaign.
7. Give feedback on design work your team commissions from other agencies
If your team designs its own materials, you’d probably prefer accurate technical feedback rather than vague comments about how it “looks great” or “really engaging”. This is where IT could step in. It’s best, though, to get your developer involved from the design stage rather than after it has been completed.
8. Review case studies and customer testimonials
IT can review these marketing materials to make sure that they are technically sound, e.g., the copy is well-written (no grammatical or spelling errors), it has been proofread for accuracy and tone of voice, and there’s nothing in them which will scare off customers. For example: does an image in a case study link to a website with HTTP instead of HTTPS?
Conclusion
In summation, tech pros can play a very important part in helping to push your company’s marketing message out into the world. After all, everyone wins when marketers and techies work together – it’s just that sometimes, tech people can get so wrapped up in what they are doing that they forget to think about the bigger picture of how their efforts have an impact on everything else happening within the business. But there is plenty of room for tech people to contribute to the success of marketing campaigns.
