Independent Research Reveals Marketers Top Challenges Stem from Multiple Technologies, Cross-Channel

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Independent Research Reveals Marketers Top Challenges Stem from Multiple Technologies, Cross-Channel Interactions

Study Identifies Today's Top Marketing Challenges, Provides Roadmap for Marketers to Transform Their Business through Cross-Channel Digital Marketing

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- A new commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget (NYS: ET) finds the top challenge facing marketers today is managing and understanding customer interactions across the myriad of multiple marketing technologies used to power campaigns across email, mobile, social media, the Web and other digital channels.


The study found 35 percent of marketers surveyed ranked managing marketing campaigns across multiple marketing point solutions as one of their greatest challenges - despite 78 percent who said they believe cross-channel marketing is important or very important to their business.

"The time for cross-channel marketing is here. And marketers know it," according to the October 2012 study entitled "The Keys To Successful Cross-Channel Marketing." "Even so, they admit that cross-channel efforts pose significant challenges for them. Most respondents struggle to understand customers' cross-channel interactions and to manage execution across multiple technologies."

Based on a survey of 211 U.S. marketers who lead campaigns for companies with revenues greater than $100 million, the study identifies key challenges in cross-channel marketing and provides a self-test designed to score marketers' current capabilities and influence future strategy.

Key findings from the study include:

  • 78 percent of marketers believe cross-channel marketing is important or very important.

  • 76 percent are interested in an integrated messaging platform to manage all customer data and execute across all digital direct channels.

  • 51 percent believe their current marketing technologies fall short due to lack of analytics that provide cross-channel data to improve program performance or predict outcomes.

  • 44 percent power cross-channel campaigns through individual teams focused on individual marketing channels, such as email, mobile, social media and the Web.

To download a complimentary copy of the "The Key to Successful Cross-Channel Marketing"research, click here.

"Cross-channel marketing requires a new approach to digital marketing - one that is built around the customer, not individual teams within marketing," said Tim Kopp, chief marketing officer at ExactTarget. "Marketers must move quickly to adopt an integrated messaging platform to coordinate and manage the multiple customer interactions and resulting data that now influence nearly every purchase."

The debut of the study follows the unveiling ExactTarget's next generation of digital marketing innovations and the expansion of its international operations Oct. 16-18 before a sold-out crowd of more than 4,000 attending its annual Connections conference.

Key announcements and innovations unveiled during the event included:

  • MobilePush - Provides the first enterprise application to integrate push notifications into cross-channel digital marketing with advanced reporting, analytics and cross-channel integration.

  • Cross-Channel Playbooks - Provides a step-by-step guide within the Interactive Marketing Hub to develop campaigns across email, mobile, social and the Web to solve common use cases.

  • Distributed Sending - Enables enterprises and distributed organizations to empower business units, franchisees and stores with an intuitive application to create, send and track local email campaigns; features enterprise content management, approvals, and permissions.

  • Advanced Web Solutions - Enables marketers to leverage customer preferences, browsing behavior and engagement to power personalized Web content and product recommendations powered by newly acquired iGoDigital.

  • Business-to-Business Automation - Expands capabilities to create, deploy and manage online lead nurturing marketing campaigns through integrations with salesforce.com, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SugarCRM powered by newly acquired Pardot.

  • Fuel Platform - Enables developers and technology providers to build upon, extend and integrate with ExactTarget's Interactive Marketing Hub and its suite of messaging and automation applications.

  • Global Expansion - Expands the company's European operations with offices in Stockholm and Paris and the addition of a French user interface across its suite of digital marketing products.

Connections '12 featured keynote addresses from Michael J. Fox, illusionist David Blaine and executives from Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, reddit and the New York Stock Exchange. Connections '12 followed ExactTarget Connections '11, an event that welcomed more than 3,000 marketers to Indianapolis and featured a lineup of industry thought leaders including Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder and Soledad O'Brien, award-winning CNN anchor and special correspondent.

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of email marketing and cross-channel interactive marketing software-as-a-service solutions that empower organizations of all sizes to communicate with their customers through email, mobile, social media and websites. ExactTarget's powerful suite of integrated applications enable marketers to plan, automate, deliver and optimize data-driven interactive marketing and real-time communications to drive customer engagement, increase sales and improve return on marketing investment. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana with offices across North America and in Europe, South America and Australia, ExactTarget trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "ET." For more information, visit www.ExactTarget.com.



ExactTarget
Media Contact:
Kari Brownsberger (Finn Partners) 312.329.3980 or MediaRelations@ExactTarget.com

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