Only 8% of senior UK marketers are fully confident in their own digital marketing skills, and 9% in the skills of their teams, research by Adobe reveals.
Marketers appear to be unable to catch up with the pace of technological change within digital marketing practices. Similar apprehensiveness has been noted in the U.S., where a mere 9% of marketers confirmed their confidence in the effectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns, and 61% referred to recent digital marketing approaches by most companies as in a cycle of learning by doing or trial and error.
A similar sentiment is felt in the UK, where over 50% of marketers are basing their digital campaigns on intuition as opposed to rigorous testing of campaigns and content which is the norm with more traditional forms of marketing, such as employing a focus group to obtain feedback on a new television spot. A part of this problem can be attributed to a lack of data analysis and insight strategies by marketing departments, resulting in a lack of relevant information to inspire confidence in the direction of digital campaigns.
There also appears to be a deficiency of training available for digital marketing professionals, with Adobe’s own research findings indicating that less than 3% of respondents received formal training with over half of marketers depending on their colleagues to keep abreast with the latest digital marketing trends.
Other issues encountered by the marketing sphere due to this lack of assurance include the downplaying of the significance and value of emerging channels. Especially in the UK, with smartphone penetration rising to over two-thirds of the population, mobile marketing channels are not being utilised in an effective manner to reach consumers. In fact, almost half of marketers have not employed a formal mobile marketing strategy for their respective companies. These statistics are surprising considering the personal, portable and ‘always-on’ nature of mobile devices makes them highly conducive as a channel for reaching consumers.
Bijan Bedroud, Managing Director for Northern Europe at Adobe states that, “Although marketers may not have full confidence in their skills or knowledge, most recognise just how big the digital opportunity is. It is marketers that have knowledge and insight, and who are training their teams to be more ‘digital-ready’, that will be in the strongest position to capitalise on digital’s full promise.”
