The cover of April’s Information Week magazine (yes, I still get it in mashed-up tree form) had a very telling cover story. It was titled, “IT and Marketing: How Digital Media’s Changing The Relationship“. As business owners,”c-level” Executives, shareholders, etc. continue to pressure marketing folks to produce measurable metrics and results from their campaigns, the marketing department is forced to come up with creative and streamlined ways to entice their target market into buying their products and services.  Some takeaways;

1. It’s all about the data. There are good job opportunities for IT pros who know how to manage and analyze that data. Data is King!

2. Marketing execs don’t always trust the IT folks to implement the necessary marketing software. Trust needs to improve!

3. IT pros need to work more closely with their marketing colleagues to understand their business needs and goals. Relationships need to improve!

4. IBM, Oracle, Teradata and SAS are using their analytical focus to delve more deeply into marketing applications. Coordinate the Data!

5. Each division needs to show revenue contribution. Kodak employs a chief listener and chief blogger. They monitor and respond to relevant social network comments and reviews.

6. 46% of CMOs blame IT for insufficient support of the technical applications as to why they aren’t ready for full-steam ahead digital marketing.

7. Only 25% of marketers said they consult IT, contact centers and back office groups when selecting and deploying marketing software.

8. 46% of marketers don’t think their CIO understands marketing objectives and requirements.

9. To improve that percentage, IT needs to show it can help marketing folks with data management and the analytics of modeling and A/B testing results.

10. IT folks wake up and say, “I want to get integrated because it’s cool”. Marketing folks wake up and say, “I want to make money so I can keep my job.”