The T-Shaped Marketer and CRM

’T-Shaped Marketer’ was coined by David Guest in the early 1990s as being a generalist, but one who also has two, or more areas of expertise. You can learn more about my thoughts on the generalist philosophy here.

As I made the transition from print/web creative to digital marketer in the late 2000s, my goal was to have a broader understanding of not only emerging marketing technologies, with a specific focus on: optimization, driving leads via organic content, but also how lead data was propagated into CRMs.

Most marketers do not consider what happens after lead hand-off, I didn't what to be that guy.

As I have mentioned prior within this blog, a solid web UX, MarTech infrastructure and subsequent campaigns are empty vessels without the end-state of an accurate and actionable lead for sales.

Any relevant and timely campaign effort must be coupled to a strong policy of prospect data flowing freely into a clean, scalable database. Otherwise, you're just guessing and assumptions cost money.

The take away: No matter the MarCom role, always look for a holistic, multi-disciplinary marketer that understands all aspects of the leadgen, especially the hand-off process to your CRM.

Additionally, for leaner marketing departments a T-shaped team member is vital to success.