An Open Technology Platform and Why It's Vital for a B2B CMO

Rest assured an open technology platform is vital for any CMO - B2B or B2C. However, in the case of the B2B CMO, it is perhaps even more important. And the reason I say that can be summed up in a single sentence, which comes from an article which ran earlier this year on business2community.com: "B2B marketers must move toward solutions that identify and act upon intent throughout the customer journey."

I reference that particular line for it speaks directly to the need for B2B CMOs and all B2B marketers to realize that, as the author astutely points out - it's time to "embrace the new B2B prospect, to acknowledge their targets as both professionals and people who need to be engaged throughout the funnel but who are more likely to repay your timely, relevant messaging with lifelong loyalty and brand ambassadorship."

In other words, it's time for B2B marketers to not only make peace with the fact that their leads are people - yes, living breathing people, AKA consumers - but also realize that the legacy systems they've been using need to go and be replaced by "the real-time intent data-driven platforms and full-funnel approach of modern B2C marketers."

Open Platform: What It Really Means & Why You Need It

Quite simply it means that the platform has the agility to integrate third-party applications and data quickly and seamlessly into your marketing platform so you are not limited to vendor-specific applications and proprietary data sources.

It's critical that the CMO and CIO invest in open technology platforms that allow their organization to maximize the marketing technology investments made today, while being ready for the ones that come tomorrow.

Key features of an open platform include:

• Open architecture for accessing best-of-breed marketing and sales applications.
• Ability to fully integrate third-party apps directly into your integrated marketing campaigns.
• Integration with leading data providers to automatically add revenue, industry, and geographic data to leads.
• Tools for cleaning and refreshing your marketing database in real time.
• Applications for automating manual efforts such as exporting and uploading lists.

The bottom line in all this is the technology purchased today should be able to connect with the technology you’ll want to purchase tomorrow.

Earlier this year, Oracle Marketing Cloud, in partnership with The CMO Club, released the CMO Solution Guide to Leveraging New Technology and Marketing Platforms. The Guide offers distinct solutions for all CMOs on how to best leverage technology and marketing platforms.

Be sure to download it today and hear from fellow CMOs on how they rely on open platforms.