Has IT Experience Become a Requirement for Marketing Professionals?

IT-experience-marketers

An increasing number of new hires entering the marketing profession are now expected to have technical experience, according to new data from Mondo, a technology and digital marketing staffing firm.

The report, which is based on data from the company’s own placement records, forecasts a 38% increase in demand for digital marketing professionals this year, with roughly half of all new hires expected to come from a technical background.

In a company-issued press release, Mondo’s vice president of marketing states the surge in demand for marketing professionals with IT experience is being driven by the rapid convergence of Marketing and Technology departments and the drive among CMOs to improve competencies around the latest Web, mobile, automated and integrated marketing technologies.

“With 53 new marketing technologies introduced in 2013 alone, and that number expected to double in 2014, there are huge opportunities for technology professionals in marketing departments,” said McGarrity. “Without the skilled resources to create, test, and execute these marketing strategies, companies will get left behind.”

Mondo reported five primary skill sets that are likely to bolster candidates’ prospects of a successful hire: Big Data, cloud computing, marketing automation, search engine optimization, and mobile application development.

But most of those skill sets aren’t unique to the marketing profession, which means CMOs won’t be the only organizations this year competing for tech talent. And if salary projections are any indication, marketing departments looking to expand their IT resources will have to put their money where their mouth is. Trends like Big Data and mobile media are translating into growing paychecks for some professionals, according to the recently released 2014 Salary Guides from Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group – which projects salary increases of 5-7% for most tech specialties.

Experience mobile applications developers are expected to see their starting salary jump nearly 8% – the largest of any tech position, with total compensation ranging from $100,000 to $144,000. Skilled mobile designers can anticipate average starting salaries to increase 6.3% in 2014, to the range of $66,000 to $103,000.

This will not only force CMOs to make a compelling case to management for the benefits of investing more dollars in personnel, but will add new pressures to an already strained tech workforce. For several years tech companies have been lamenting the talent shortage, a complaint that could be echoed this year by some CMOs.

There is some evidence that marketers are looking to compensate by bolstering technology resources without increasing headcount. The results of a poll of 400 marketers released in January by Infogroup Targeting Solutions found that while more than six out of ten respondents expect to spend more on Big Data initiatives this year, most are holding off on hiring the talent required to manage them. Only 43% of marketers said they plan on hiring for data-related positions, according to the survey.

This is a mistake, says David McRae, president of Infogroup Targeting Solutions.

“Big data is meaningless without manpower,” McRae said. “While it’s exciting that most companies are making bigger investments in big data, marketers should not forget that it takes people to make sense of the information. Hiring before reaching the analytics stage enables companies to become data-led and act on the data.”

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