There are New Sheriffs In Town For Marketers: Ecosystems & Experts.

Just when you thought you had the business landscape figured out, the MarTech space continues to evolve. And there are two new trends that are worth highlighting: 1) Ecosystems are bundling new marketing services into their offerings, and 2) Expert "service companies" like Accenture and Deloitte, are offering products, and equally, "software companies", ostensibly product offerings, are offering services.

We are definitely in a time of the Exponential company as @salim Ismail would say.

This video, which is worth watching in its entirety, from Scott Brinker is insightful as usual, in its insight into the rapid change, the perpetual change, and more importantly the opportunities that CMOs can leverage if they think of their brands through the new lens their CEOs expect, and sometimes communicate:

1. For businesses and brands, you now have more options as to outside partners and more platforms you can bring in-house that can solve more of your marketing mix problems in addition to whatever you initially signed up for;

2. Given your existing or new competition, what do you offer that your competitors can't or won't provide? This is an opportunity.

3. If you are an ad agency, you have more competition vying for client's account so figure out a strategy to get ahead of this;

4. Lastly, as I always recommend, I would encourage marketers to bring their customers closer than ever. Have strategy labs with them, conduct joint research, define common objectives, bring them into the office, get rid of the artificial walls of office vs consumer, define common metrics for success. And then do it again, and again. And fit the technology to leverage what you learn. But start at the right place: the customer. And that plays out in B2C and B2B.

Here's the video: https://bit.ly/31VGn06

Thanks to Scott Brinker of the Chief Marketing Technologist blog who always keeps me humble with his ability to see the larger ecosystem trends, while I'm looking at it from a level below. And thanks to Salim Ismail who is bringing me intellectually to new places.

@scott brinker @salim Ismail #CMOs #CEOS #marketing #innovation